On this day in 1878, Janusz Korczak, originally named Henryk Goldszmit, was born in Warsaw, Poland, to a working-class family. After his father’s passing in 1896, Korczak became the sole breadwinner for his mother, grandmother, and sister. Because of this, he quickly became sympathetic to children and would eventually devote most of his life’s work to advocating for children's rights. While participating in a literary contest in 1898, he used the pseudonym Janusz Korczak, a name he took from the 19th-century book Janusz Korczak and the Pretty Sword Sweeper Lady, by the Polish author Jozef Ignacy Kraszewski. Korczak originally wanted to be a doctor and studied medicine at the University of Warsaw; from 1905 to 1906, he served as a military doctor in the Russo-Japanese War, during which time he came to the conclusion that he would make a lasting impression on the world as an educator, rather than as a doctor.After joining the Orphans Aid Society, Korczak became the director of Dom Sierot, the orphanage of his own design for Jewish children in Warsaw. Around 100 children lived in this orphanage where they took part in a ‘republic for children’, participating in the small parliament, law court, and newspaper. While in the process of creating a newspaper for Jewish children entitled The Small Review, his children’s books How To Love A Child (1919) and King Matt The First (1922), gained him literary recognition and widespread popularity.Korczak also had his own radio program, which was widely broadcast in Poland in the 1930s, but it shut down due to growing antisemitism. Finding ways to resist the policies of German-occupied Poland, Korczak refused to wear the armband with the Star of David or to remove his Polish officer uniform. Despite these acts of resilience, his orphanage was forced to move into the confines of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940. Though he was repeatedly offered shelter by the Aryans, he refused to abandon the children. As he grew older, Korczak began suffering from his ailing health but continued to put the children’s health first, going door to door in the ghetto and asking for food, clothing, and medicine for them. He recorded his experience in the ghetto in a diary that was published in Poland in 1958.Despite the harsh realities of life in the ghetto, Korczak tried his best to educate his children with the truth and often conducted plays and concerts at the orphanage, which attracted members of the public. He continued to put the children’s lives first; even on August 5, 1940, when the orphanage was deported to the east. Korczak, 12 members of his staff, and over 200 children were taken to Treblinka where they were immediately sent to the gas chambers. In 2006, the Janusz Korczak Monument in Warsaw was unveiled at the site where his orphanage once stood.