Korczak (1990)

Janusz Korczak, the film’s title character. The story of Korczak begins in 1936, when Polish Radio suspends the program hosted by Janusz Korczak. Young Jews from the Orphans’ Home tell their former guardian that they cannot defend themselves against antisemitism in Poland and are denied respect by Poles. Korczak himself gets into an argument with a Polish laundress employed there, who refuses to “wash Jewish shit.” Meanwhile, one of the Orphans’ Home residents, Józek, is infatuated with a Polish girl, Ewa, but the relationship is doomed to fail. In September 1939, shortly after Germany invades Poland, Korczak puts on a Polish uniform, despite his former ward Heniek urging him not to. When the Warsaw ghetto is established and the orphanage is moved there, Korczak demands that the local Gestapo office return a stolen cartload of potatoes intended for the Orphans’ Home. He is arrested and placed in a cell with the director of Polish Radio, who apologizes to Korczak, embarrassed, for suspending his program years earlier. Korczak is released from Pawiak prison through the intervention of a German doctor who had read his articles. On his way to the orphanage’s new premises, the educator indignantly witnesses a Jewish policeman beating a child. Korczak firmly rejects Maryna Falska and Stefania Wilczyńska’s offers to move him to the Aryan side. At the same time, he tries to keep his wards from becoming preoccupied with the war: he continues their lessons as usual and plays with them. He also sees to their supplies, begging for food in the ghetto. He meets Szloma, a lice-ridden boy caring for his dying mother, then takes him in and places him in Józek’s care. Korczak himself argues with the Warsaw Judenrat, protesting the conditions in which the children live and pleading for them to be given the help they need. One day, Korczak witnesses the execution of a tram conductor who had thrown bread from a tram as it passed through the ghetto. The Germans notice Korczak, but his former ward Icek Szulc, now involved in smuggling, saves him. Icek organizes a collection among the smugglers to raise money for Korczak. Bund fighters confront the educator; among them is one of Korczak’s former wards, who accuses him of raising “weaklings.” When reports reach the ghetto of Jews deported from it being murdered, Korczak nevertheless refuses to close the orphanage. He again rejects Falska’s offer. When the Germans liquidate the orphanage, the chairman of the Judenrat, Adam Czerniaków, commits suicide, while Korczak and his wards walk calmly through the chaotic streets of the ghetto. Józek and Szloma, who are away from the Orphans’ Home at the time, inform Falska that the children have been deported. Meanwhile, Korczak and the children board the train cars. The train leaves the Umschlagplatz for the extermination camp at Treblinka. In the film’s final, visionary scene, the car carrying Korczak and his children detaches from the train. The children and Korczak run out of it, and then they all disappear into the fog.