Janusz Korczak/Henryk Goldszmit (born in Warsaw on 22 July 1878 or 1879; murdered in the German death camp of Treblinka on 5 or 6 August 1942) - physician, educator, writer, social worker, "trustworthy guardian", thinker; emotionally attached to his native city throughout his life. Having completed his studies at Warsaw University, Korczak worked as a physician at the Berson and Bauman Children's Hospital (1905-12). He managed the Dom Sierot orphanage for Jewish children (1912-1942) and took part in the creation of the Nasz Dom orphanage for Polish children (in Pruszków in 1919 and in Warsaw from 1928). In both establishments, his own system of education was used and research was conducted on the development and social life of the children living there. Korczak was a member of numerous social and educational organizations; being a popular speaker, he gave many seminars and lectured at colleges and universities. He also acted as court expert on children. He founded an experimental children's paper called "Mały Przegląd" (Little Review, 1926-1939) and worked for the radio under the pen-name of Stary Doktór (Old Doctor, 1934-36, 1938-39).

Korczak's oeuvre, composed with both adults and children in mind, consist of more than 20 books, over 1,400 articles published in some 100 magazines and valuable inedited manuscripts (about 200 items, including the Ghetto memoir). His career as a writer, journalist and author of scholarly works began in 1896 and was brought to an end on 4 August 1942, when he jotted down his last notes.

Korczak belonged to the generation of "rebellious" Warsaw intelligentsia, for which activism in the social and educational sphere went hand in hand with involvement in the struggle for national independence (Poland was partitioned by the neighbouring powers). Korczak was both witness and actor during the historic events, wars and revolutions (the Russo-Japanese war and the revolution of 1905-6; the First World War and the Russian revolution, 1914-18; the Polish-Bolshevik war of 1920; the Second World War). Drafted into the Tsarist army, he crossed Central and Eastern Europe and travelled as far as Manchuria. To broaden his education, he also travelled in Switzerland, Germany, France and England; in the 1930s he visited Palestine twice, fascinated by the holy land of three religions (though deeply religious, he was not attached to any specific religious creed), by the reawakening of the Jewish national movement and by the kibbutz experiment.

He considered himself a member of two cultures and two nations: Jewish and Polish; he was an active member of both communities and worked for their rapprochement.

A discoverer and explorer of the world of children, a champion of children's rights, a pioneer of the theory and practice of education, a hero of the civil resistance movement in the time of the Holocaust and a great moral authority that still manages to unite people over divisions - a "universal man".