Korczak — facing the siege of Warsaw

Henryk Goldszmit, 61, is known by his literary pseudonym Janusz Korczak. A paediatrician, a children's author (Król Maciuś Pierwszy, 1923 — King Matt the First — is a classic of world children's literature), an educationalist who theorised the rights of the child as early as 1925 (a theory later taken up by the international Convention of 1989). Since 1912 he has run the Dom Sierot — an orphanage for Jewish children at 92 Krochmalna Street in Warsaw, which in 1939 houses about 200 children aged 7 to 14.

The siege of Warsaw begins on 8 September. 92 Krochmalna is in the north-western quarter, only 600 metres from the German positions of early September. The air raids — by the Heinkel He 111s of KG 27 and 53 — strike civilian districts from 7 September. Provisions are running short. The Dom Sierot kitchen has a fortnight's flour. The water mains run intermittently.

On 12 September, friends of Korczak — Maryna Falska of the Nasz Dom orphanage and several members of the Komitet Pomocy Żydom (Committee to Aid the Jews) — propose evacuating the children eastward, into the zone that would later fall to the Soviets. The educationalists reckon the children have a chance of surviving if they are moved. Korczak is Jewish. He knows the German occupation will be especially violent for Jews. He also knows he has 200 children in his charge, some of them babies.