Janusz Korczak was born in 1878 in Warsaw into a Jewish family. A doctor and an author he had a great empathy with children and in particular orphans. His philosophy about how to treat children, which included regarding them as individuals and treating them with respect, was way ahead of its time. But Korczak became caught up in the Nazi invasion as Director of the Warsaw Ghetto Orphanage. On August 6th 1942 Korczak, his staff and 200 children were deported from the ghetto and murdered in Treblinka.
In 2004 I visited the former orphanage of the Warsaw Ghetto ( pictured above) with a group from my synagogue.
One of our members, Jeffrey Segal, an actor, read to us in the orphanage grounds, from Korczak's final words written in his ghetto diary. He was driven almost mad by his daily search for food donations for the 200 children in his care. " Aug 2nd 1942. Our Father who art in heaven... This prayer was carved out of hunger and misery. Our daily bread. Bread."
On the bus out of Warsaw up to Treblinka where Korczak and the children were deported and killed on arrival I wrote a poem, A message to the children.
This year ( 2011) the poem was set to music by Helen Bonney, author and composer and a soundtrack recorded by her son Jack Cooke. The poem has been published in Poetry Salzburg and was set as an essay question for a student on the English degree at Salzburg University. The student called the poem, “an artefact.”
By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: November 19, 2011
Gloria Spielman
Gloria Spielman is the author of two picture books Janusz Korczak’s Children and Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime which has been awarded a Silver Medal in the 2011 Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards in the category of Non-Fiction Picture Book. A former high school English teacher, Gloria has also written English teaching books and contributed to multi-media English courses. She has many more wonderful books in the works that we can look forward to reading soon.
Nicki Richesin: Congratulations on your lovely Marcel Marceau: Master of Mime. It’s a beautifully compelling book about his legendary career and how he brought the world’s attention back to the ancient art of pantomime, but it’s also the story of how he survived World War II. What inspired you to create this well-deserved homage to Mr. Marceau?
Gloria Spielman: Thank You, Nicki. I always enjoy reading The Children’s Book Review; it’s such a terrific resource for anyone in the world of children’s books, so I was thrilled to talk to you.
I’d much rather tell you what inspired me to write my first book, Janusz Korczak’s Children, it’s a far better story. My then third grade daughter had to do a project on Korczak for Holocaust Memorial Day, and that got me reading and thinking.
The truth is, the original inspiration for Marcel Marceau actually came from my friend Mandy. She was looking at Janusz Korczak and said “You know, you should write about Marcel Marceau. He was really interesting.” She told me of his work with the resistance and after she left I did some reading. Mandy was right. I started to imagine the pictures. I often imagine a picture book in pictures as well as words. My editor agreed. So did the publisher. And I started to write. I wish could say I saw a wonderful mime performance when I was a child and fell in love with it, but that would be a lie.
I was astonished to learn that Marceau was a part of the French resistance. He bravely smuggled Jewish children through the forests to safety and entertained allied troops. He led such a fascinating life. Did you discover anything that surprised you when doing your research?
It was all fascinating. But there is only so much that can go into a 32 page book. One anecdote that would have made a great picture book illustration is when Marceau came face to face with the man he called his creative father, Charlie Chaplin. He told Chaplin how he paid tribute to him in his American performance and began to imitate him in the middl
My editor suggested I make a list of overused words and phrases and use “search” to find them. Here are some of mine. (Full disclosure: I think part of the problem arises from this book being purchased half-written in third person, then completed in third, then changed to first person at the request of my editor.)
- Began to [Just do it already]
- Shook his head [It’s a wonder my character’s heads haven’t fallen off]
- Turned [People are always turning to each other in my book]
- Leaned forward [I need a wider physical vocabulary for people to express their feelings]
- I realized [Just skip this part already and say what she realized]
- Was with a being verb form, ie “I was leaning” [Just lean!]
- I knew [No need to tell us this part]
- I could tell [I told you to stop doing this]
- Carefully [overused in general]
What words do YOU overuse?
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12 Comments on A message to the children : by Miriam Halahmy, last added: 12/9/2011
Oh Miriam how heart-breaking. Thank you for your poem.
Miriam - I encountered much about the Holocaust during my MA course in Death Studies over the last four years. Each time I found it unbearable to read about, I reminded myself how lucky I was to be only reading about it, not experiencing it.
Each time i hear of another piece of the jigsaw, another terrible, piteous event, my heart breaks open anew. I pray for myself and for others that our hearts will never stop being broken open by these stories, because it is only by that breaking, that immediacy, that reminding, that we will stay vigilantly on watch that such things should never happen again. Because they could.
Thank you for breaking my heart open again. x
It's such a difficult one this - because I know I will be breaking people's hearts and yet I felt that the story and the song had to be shared. One lovely friend said that after hearing the song she woke up in the middle of the night in tears. Feel very responsible.
Hello Miriam,
What a moving poem you wrote. Why is it that we know every starlet's trivial story from the news, but not this one?
Thank you for sharing this and once again, thank you for this beautiful poem in remembrance of the children.
terribly moving Miriam. I recall watching a film about Korczak years ago and being haunted by the story. Your poem encaspulates the pain, the dignity, terror and love in an agonsing moment
Heartbreaking story and beautiful, beautiful poem Miriam.
Liz x
Miriam
This is such important work that you are doing. Thank you for bringing this to us.
and thank you for this beautiful blog.
A very moving post, Miriam. Thank you.
As Roz said, unbearable.
Such an affecting poem Miriam - thank you. So important to keep sharing these stories and bringing them to a new generation.
The power of poetry... thanks for sharing it with us, Miriam.
Hugely moving - and it makes me angry as well as sad, because I cannot understand why people want to make such policies. I can understand how people allow the evil to happen, or cannot stop it happening. But to actually plan to do it, as they sat down to do in that villa on the Wannsee -
As well as remembering and mourning for the dead, I'm just so aware of the children whose lives are destroyed nowadays - maybe often through indifference rather than murder - but still destroyed, and sometimes their deaths bring profits to our pension funds and cheap prices to our shops. And one can't campaign for EVERYTHING of course. Still, I do think it is important to do what one can, where one can.