Watford Grammar School for Girls Exhibitions

Major exhibition exploring one man’s fight to promote the rights of the child

  

Champion of the Child: Janusz Korczak

 

Exhibition runs September 15 – 25 2008

 

September 17, 2008 CLOSED Private View invitation only

Korczak, a Polish-Jewish doctor, educator and children's author, wrote passionately about the subject of children's rights and his ideas were adopted by the UN in the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.  In recognition of his contributions, Pope John Paul II declared, "For the world today, Janusz Korczak is a symbol of true religion and true morality," and UNESCO proclaimed 1979 "The Year of Janusz Korczak" to coincide with the International Year of the Child and the centenary of his birth. 

  

This exhibition reveals how Korczak came to represent the rights of street children and orphans in Warsaw in the early 20th century, introducing the first progressive orphanages for Jewish and Catholic children.  He hosted a children's radio programme, founded the first children's newspaper and testified on behalf of children in juvenile courts.  He is considered to be a Polish national hero and King Matt the First, his story of a child king, is regarded in Poland today with the reverence the British accord Peter Pan or Alice in Wonderland.

  

The exhibition also explores how life in Poland became increasingly difficult for Korczak after the Nazi occupation. In 1940, his Jewish orphanage was moved inside the Warsaw Ghetto and on August 6 1942 he was forced to gather together the 200 orphans in his care for deportation.  Refusing all offers for his own rescue, Korczak accompanied the children on the train that would take them to the Treblinka extermination camp, preferring to die with the children under his protection rather than abandon them. 

 

 The universalism of Korczak's message and the effect of his teachings on modern thinking are examined in the exhibition, which highlights the issue of children’s rights today. The exhibition will feature original paintings and drawings of Korczak by Itzchak Belfer, an Israeli artist who was born in Poland in 1923 and raised in Korczak’s Warsaw Jewish orphanage.

  

 

 

The exhibition is in association with the Jewish Museum - London’s Museum of Jewish Life

  

Venue: Watford Grammar School for Girls, Lady’s Close, Watford, Herts WD18 0AE

 

Hours: September 15 – 25 2008 Monday to Thursday 4 – 8pm Sunday 11am-2pm

 

(CLOSED September 17, 2008 – Private view, invitation only)

 

Admission: FREE

 

 

Group Visits and Educational Programmes welcome by prior arrangement