along with Frances Burnett’s Little Lord, one of the most popular selections
in clandestine schooling institutions in the Warsaw ghetto.²⁴
The characters in the school readings served as role models for young readers.
Diaries and materials in the Ringelblum Archive feature many references
to children who helped their parents, looked after their younger siblings, who
gave up a piece of bread for the sake of their loved ones.²⁵ However, the influence
of family and school competed with that of the street. Teachers tried to counteract
recurring begging and to protect children from dangerous and depraving
smuggling. In this regard, student self-government turned out to be an
effective strategy. Children’s committees were on duty in the dining room; they
organised entertainment events and decorated rooms with a popular ghetto
ornament – a string with colourful cut-outs and drawings along the walls.
They also took care of plants, awarded diplomas, and offered commendations
for cleanliness and tidiness.²⁶ Students’ self-government allied with teachers
in the daily struggle for cohesiveness, solidarity, and discipline of their pupils.
Teachers and custodians in the Warsaw ghetto, unpaid for months, hungry,
exposed to typhus, struggling with overcrowded premises, dirt, lack of
school aids, books, notebooks, pencils, and so on, distinguished themselves
not only with their extraordinary generosity, but also by their great sensitivity
and pedagogical innovation in working with hungry and neglected children.
They often paid for their activities with their own lives. During the first Gross-
Aktion (22 July – 21 September 1942) almost all the children of the Warsaw
ghetto were killed. Janusz Korczak, Stefania Wilczyńska,²⁷ Natan (Nusn)
The book quickly gained enormous popularity and entered the canon of world literature for children. A series of stories about dignity and friendship was the favourite reading of the children of the Warsaw ghetto. This work was also mentioned among the readings recommended for the TSYSHO’s clandestine classes. See also docs. 5 and 46.
24 See doc. 5.
25 See doc. 1.
26 See doc. 7.
27 Stefania Wilczyńska (1886–1942), educator, Janusz Korczak’s associate, co-founder and main counsellor at the Orphans’ Home at Krochmalna Street 92, co-managed the institution from the beginning of its existence. She studied natural and medical sciences in Belgium. In the 1930s, she visited Palestine several times, considered settling there permanently, but in 1939 returned to Poland. She maintained contacts with the ghetto youth underground movement, mainly with Zivia Lubetkin (see doc. 45). On 6 August 1942, she went to the Umschlagplatz together with her charges and Korczak; they all died in
