Korczak, Janusz (Henryk Goldszmidt)

(1878 or 1879–1942)

   Polish educator. In pre-war Warsaw, Korczak, a doctor, was known for the progressive methods he used as director of a Jewish orphanage. In 1942 he refused to abandon his orphans when the Nazis sent them in cattle-trucks to the gas- chambers at Treblinka, and insisted on going with them to their and his death. On the twentieth anniversary of his martyrdom, commemorative stamps were issued in Poland and Israel.