Going the Extra Mile: The Great Experiment of Maryna Falska’s & Janusz Korczak’s ‘Our Home’

bielany_al_zjednoczenia_maryna_falska_fot_jerzy_michalski_forum-0427791223.jpg, default, The ‘Our Home’ orphanage in Warsaw’s Bielany District, established by Maryna Falska and Janusz Korczak, photo: Jerzy Michalski / Forum, Going the Extra Mile: The Great Experiment of Maryna Falska’s & Janusz Korczak’s ‘Our Home’

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In northern Warsaw, near the Stare Bielany Metro Station, stands a grey building that seems ordinary at first – resembling an institution or school. Come a bit closer, and you’ll notice a black plaque with the inscription ‘Nasz Dom im. Maryny Falskiej’ (The ‘Our Home’ of Maryna Falska). Polina Justova relates the unusual history of this house – a witness to many tragic upheavals of the 20th century – and the lives of its founders.

In the shadow of Korczak

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Janusz Korczak, with his pupils and employees of the Orphans' Home at the DS Różyczka summer camp, Wawer (nowadays Marysin Wawerski), 1938; original prints can be found in Israel at the Ghetto Fighters’ House, photo courtesy of the Korczakianum Centre for Documentation and Research in Warsaw

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Janusz Korczak wśród wychowanków i pracowników Domu Sierot na koloni letniej DS "Różyczka", Wawer (wtedy pod Warszawą, dziś Marysin Wawerski), 1938; ; oryginalne odbitki znajdują się w Izraelu, w Ghetto Fighters’ House., fot. Ośrodek Dokum…

Expounding on the upbringing of children, and their rights, the peculiarities of their minds and development, is how many remembered the Old Doctor – the renowned writer, educator and physician Janusz Korczak, who died alongside his wards in the gas chamber at the Nazi concentration camp Treblinka. Yet he hardly could’ve carried out a revolution in the education system without the help of two women: Stefania Wilczyńska (Pani Stefa), who worked with Korczak at the orphanage on Krochmalna Street, and Maria (or as her friends and pupils called her – Maryna) Falska, with whom he founded the Our Home orphanage. Both felt more than simple friendship, admiration and affection for Korczak. Both put duty ahead of their feelings. Both shared all the household chores around the upkeep of the orphanages with him (even doing most of them). Both, inspired by his educational theories, ardently put them into practice.

Stefania Wilczyńska went with Korczak all the way to the end, and shared his tragic fate. It was she who made sure that the children going to Umschlagplatz – the transfer point in the Warsaw ghetto where people were loaded into cattle wagons and sent ‘to the East’ – had water and sandwiches with them and that they wear as clean and tidy clothes as possible. Maryna Falska, whose life was coloured by conspiratorial and social activities and a family tragedy even before the war, moved away from Korczak’s philosophy and revised many theories they had formulated in their collaborations, however, their communication – though not as close – lasted until the end of the Doctor’s life.

Emancipé, activist, ‘Sorrowful Lady’

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Maria Rogowska-Falska, 1926, photo: Wikipedia

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Maryna Falska (maiden name Rogowska) was born in 1877 to a family of impoverished land owners, actively involved in the rebirth of Poland’s independence and the education system. Having received a substantial home education, she passed external exams for the right to practice teaching. Thanks to the influence of her older brother Bronislaw, she was instilled with socialist ideas and joined the ranks of the then-illegal Polish Socialist Party (PPS), and made acquaintances there, including with one of the founders – Józef Piłsudski. When Tsarist authorities uncovered a secret printing operation in Piłsudski’s apartment, they arrested everyone who had any connection to it, including the young Falska. She was exiled to Vologda for three years.

After returning from exile, she went to work in a library, returned to teaching and married Leon Falski – a respected doctor and, just like his wife, a member of the PPS. After their wedding, the young couple moved to the small Lithuanian township of Valozhyn (which is located in modern-day Belarus – editor’s note), where Falski got a job as a doctor. Their only daughter, Hania, was born there. However, their happiness did not last long – Valozhyn was struck by a typhoid epidemic, Falski was infected by a patient and died. The local residents had grown to love the doctor – a massive crowd gathered at his funeral – poor people and land owners, Jews, Catholics, rabbis and pastors. Only the widow didn’t go – a dedicated atheist, she did not want to take part in the religious ceremony on principle. After the funeral, Falska left to find work first to her sister in Kiev, then, fearing an epidemic of scarlet fever, to another sister in Moscow. It was there that she lost little Hania. In 1914, at the beginning of the war, the girl became sick and died. Maryna bore her mourning until the end of her life, dressing all in black, completely ceasing to smile, and earned herself the nickname ‘Sorrowful Lady’:

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There was something of a nun in Mrs. Maryna. Ascetic appearance – black dress, white starched collar and cuffs, black apron down to the floor, dark hair pinned up at the back of the head. A cigarette in her teeth is the only visible weakness. A pale face with narrow pursed lips was illuminated by blue eyes, which in moments of anger seemed to me as pieces of ice. “Always calm, restrained and serious”, “severe and demanding” – this is how her pupils saw her.

Author

Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, ‘Korczak. Próba biografii’, trans. Agnes Dudek

Fateful meeting

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Janusz Korczak near the entrance of the Children’s Home on 92 Krochmalna Street, around 1938-1939, photo: Korczakianum Research and Documentary Centre

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Janusz Korczak przed budynkiem Domu Sierot na ulicy Krochmalnej 92, Warszawa, ok. 1938-39, fot. Ośrodek Dokumentacji i Badań Korczakianum w Warszawie

After her twofold grief, Falska decided to entirely devote herself to social work. Finding herself in Kiev without a livelihood and no possibility of returning to German-occupied Poland (World War I was underway), she started running a boarding school for sixty Polish children –mainly orphans of the war, at the Polish Bureau for Assistance to War Victims – which was housed in wooden houses on Bahhovutivska Street. In December 1915, the fateful meeting between Falska and Janusz Korczak took place at this orphanage. As a subject of the Russian Empire, lieutenant Henryk Goldszmit (Korczak’s given name – editor’s note) was, like everyone else, conscripted into the Tsar’s army and served as a field hospital medic in a village in Volyn Oblast. He had come to Kiev on a three-day leave for Christmas. At that point, he had been the head of the Children’s Home on Krochmalna Street for several years and was known as a famous writer. He had written the extraordinarily popular novel Child of the Drawing Room and a collection of short stories Koszałki opałki, and had also started on his four-part work How to Love a Child.

The sister of renowned artist and writer Józef Czapski, Maria called Child of the Drawing Room ‘the book of my youthful years’, and Czapski himself recalled an amusing episode about Korczak’s novel:

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(...) And there was even a terrible word, in one place they said the word “ass”, it seems. It was monstrous. I know that the manager of our estate brought the book to our teacher and sealed this page, as it was extremely outrageous. The book made a very strong impression on us.

Author

Jozef Czapski, ‘Wyrwane strony’, trans. Agnes Dudek

During these three days, the charismatic Korzcak managed to inspire Falska with the idea of an orphanage (however, Korczak himself could not stand the word ‘orphanage’, preferring the term ‘children’s home’) as micro-communities and to instil democratic principles in the boarding school which he had tested in his Children’s Home: a court of peers, self-government, and their own newspaper in which any of them could write their own article:

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The visit of an officer, a Pole, a famous writer who came straight from the front, an educator who understood pedagogical problems like no one else, became a turning point for everyone. During his three days in the Kiev boarding school, Korczak transformed the chaotic life of its sixty inhabitants. From a random collection of aggressive anarchists, they began to transform into a democratic society. (...) He helped them organize a self-government. He proposed his favourite idea: to publish his own newspaper, showed how to do it, wrote an introductory feuilleton himself, and later sent articles from the front.

Author

Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, ‘Korczak. Próba biografii’, trans. Agnes Dudek

Our Home: a laboratory of a new person

Time passed and the war was approaching its end. In the summer of 1918, Maryna Falska and a group of her wards were evacuated from Kiev to Warsaw, where she once again had to search out a use of her pedagogical experience.

On 11 November 1918 Poland gained independence and by the 18th, the first sovereign government was formed, but the conditions the country found itself in after a series of occupations were far from the utopian ideals Poles had dreamed of. Cold, famine, epidemics, ashes of burned villages, destruction, looting, inflation, violent political skirmishes, masses of urchins and orphans – this was the reality that Falska was confronted with. Social activists tried to organize aid and guardianship of the needy. Members of the PPS were involved as well. In September 1919, the Department of Guardianship of Children of Workers was formed under the Central Commission of Trade Unions, which decreed the opening of a shelter for the orphans and children of political prisoners and workers living in poverty. Maryna Falska would be appointed the head of the planned orphanage. This is how the boarding school Our Home came to be, opening its doors to fifty pupils from ages 7 to 14 on 15 November 1919 on Cedrowa Street in Pruszków near Warsaw:

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We founded it – a few people – in 1919 with absolutely nothing. We borrowed a thousand marks to pay a deposit for the premises, and began writing petitions so that we would be allocated things for home improvement and food.

Author

Letter from M. Falskaya to Mrs. Michalskaya and her daughter Iza, 13 and 15 December 1941. Trans. Agnes Dudek

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Maryna Falska, Janusz Korczak, Maria Podwysocka and other mentors and children at Our Home in the 1920s, photo: Wikipedia

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The detached three-story apartment building was poorly suited for being an educational institution: it had no sewage system, running water, dining room, or larger rooms were children could get together to play. There was no garden or even a small yard where children could spend time outdoors. Despite all of this, Korczak’s principles and educational methods were applied at Our Home from the first days of its existence. It was conceived not as an ordinary orphanage but as a pedagogical laboratory in which a new person would be created.

Children were treated as independent people, who were responsible for recognizing their own needs and understanding the need for boundaries and obedience to the rules in the name of the common good. ‘A child is already an inhabitant, a citizen and a person’ – Korczak thought. In one of her articles, Maryna Falska wrote that understanding, agreement, and compact were the main principles of life at Our Home. Here, following the model of the Children’s Home on Krochmalna, daily chores were implemented, voluntary cooperative assistance was practiced, and a court of peers and a plebiscite was held, which awarded the pupils ‘qualifications’:

‘beginner’ (within the first year),

‘A – citizen’,

‘B – resident’,

‘C – indifferent resident’,

‘D – burdensome newcomer’.

Status could be raised or lowered – depending on behaviour and the desire to improve. ‘Citizenship qualifications help you understand the immutable rule of life that a person is responsible for their own behaviour and actions. (…) They warn that you could stumble. And they give faith in the possibility of redemption,’ Falska urged. Korczak came to Pruszków once or twice a week to advise the staff and teach the children.

Dreams of sausages

Despite contributions from trade unions and help from the Warsaw magistrate, there was not enough money to maintain the orphanage. The ‘lodgers’ dreamed of simply having their fill – we know about these dreams thanks to a newspaper which, at the insistence of the Doctor, was run by the children and teachers:

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But what if a spirit came and promised to fulfil any wish? Mikhas would like pâté sausage, cabbage with sausage, and sausages. Kazik – salceson and pâté sausage. Mirus – blood sausage. Metz – a lot of thick gravy. (…) When one day bread was served for breakfast, little Janek bowed to his slice and then reverently kissed it.

Author

Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, ‘Korczak. Próba biografii’, trans. Agnes Dudek

Seven years later, Marshal Piłsudski’s wife Aleksandra joined the Our Home Society, formed in 1921. Through her efforts, the society received a site from the city council, secured a lucrative concession to run a wholesale warehouse for cigarettes and salt, as well as a loan for the construction of a new, modern building in the Bielany District on the outskirts of Warsaw. The architectural competition, which had the specification of ‘the interior should evoke tenderness and a feeling of the warmth of home’, was won by Zygmunt Tarasin’s project: an ascetic, functional three-story building in the shape of an airplane (two ‘wings’, with a ‘fuselage’ and ‘tail’ connecting them).

When two people love the same, but understand differently…

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‘Our Home’, Bielany, late 1920s, photo: Korczakianum Research and Documentary Centre

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Na zdjęciu: Nasz Dom, Pola Bielańskie, koniec lat 20., fot. Ośrodek Dokumentacji i Badań Korczakianum w Warszawie

After moving to the new location in 1928 and the grand opening of the boarding school in Bielany on 29 May 1930, which was attended by the country’s most influential people (Aleksandra Piłsudka, the president’s wife Michalina Mościcka, prime minister Walery Sławek, and others), there was a crisis in the relationship between Korczak and Falska which led to a noticeable cooling as well as a break. Maryna, an active socialist, and the Old Doctor saw the mission of their institution differently. Korczak believed that the orphanage ought to be a safe haven, a shelter to protect children for the time being from the problems of the outside world. Maryna Falska sought to open the doors of the Home to local children – at this time, a residential area for the Zdobycz Robotnicza housing cooperative was being built nearby.

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She wanted the beautiful, spacious spaces of the house to serve the neighbours as well. In one of the halls, she arranged a resting room for the children from Bielany, where they received meals. She allowed them to use the boarding school sports ground and home library. Korczak claimed that she turned "Our Home" into a courtyard.

Author

Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, ‘Korczak. Próba biografii’, trans. Agnes Dudek

Falska’s position was very much in the spirit of the times. After Poland regained its independence, in the wake of the enthusiasm for rebuilding the country, the idea of cooperatives and mutual aid became popular. Warsaw, the capital of the young free state, was growing rapidly. Government departments and organizations popped up like mushrooms after the rain, and people flocked to the city in search of work and a place to live. The state willingly sold or even gave away plots of land to housing cooperatives for free. A construction boom began. This is how it was in Bielany. This district was described as ‘a sandy desert where the wind blows’ in 1914, but at the end of the 1920s through the first half of the 1930s streets had been laid down and entire neighbourhoods had been built.

For the most part, the fate of the cooperatives did not turn out well – after Piłsudski’s May Coup in 1926, all initiatives inspired by ‘left-wing’ ideas were practically banned. Cooperatives were met with persecution and went bankrupt, and people were ruthlessly driven from their homes onto the streets. Falska fiercely opposed this and to the best of her ability tried to help children from poor working families and give them the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of Our Home.

If at one point she was captivated by Korczak’s ideas and she wrote to a friend: ‘What eternal happiness this gift of life is: to be close to the mind of this great man’, then in maturity she came to the belief that Korczak’s principles were contrived, there was too much ritual in them, and that in such a closed community a consumer attitude toward life is fostered. As a result of this emerging conflict, Korczak left Our Home, transferring the position of doctor to Janina Dybowska, the head of the clinic in the Zdobycz Robotnicza quarter. Our Home gradually changed from a boarding school into the cultural centre of Bielany; the reading room even became a branch of the City Public Library. However, another, much more terrible trial was on the horizon…

War: instead of children’s bedrooms – hospital wards

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Post-war documentation of the ruins. The Mermaid statue and destroyed building of the Syrena rowing club on the bank of the Wisła at 8 Solec Street, view towards the Praga district, 1945, photo: Eugeniusz Haneman

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The Second World War did not pass Our Home by. Immediately after the war began in September 1939, children and staff were evacuated and the building was converted into a hospital for military and civilians. After the surrender, the pupils returned, and their number increased to 170 – despite the enormous risk, both Polish and Jewish children found protection under the roof of Our Home. Throughout the German occupation, the orphanage ran a kindergarten and a library and organized concerts with the participation of prominent artists.

When the Warsaw Uprising broke out on 1 August 1944, the older pupils fought in the ranks of the rebels (120 of them perished), and the Home itself served as a Field Hospital of the Home Army No. 203.

Despite the prior split with Maryna, during the occupation, the Doctor would come – even from the ghetto – to Our Home. Falska offered him help and shelter on the ‘Aryan side’, but he refused.

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Came in July 1942, very tired. He was breathing heavily. He sat down on a chair in the office and said: “Mrs. Maryna, I have come to say goodbye to Our Home.”

Author

Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, ‘Korczak. Próba biografii’, trans. Agnes Dudek

A miraculous discovery

There is still one more, now posthumous, thread connecting Korczak with Falska and Our Home. It was there that his Diary was miraculously preserved. After Korczak and his children set off on their final journey to the Umschlagplatz, the document came to Igor Newerly. However, he led clandestine activities and sheltered Jewish children, therefore, not without reason, he considered his apartment an unreliable place to store such a valuable document. In January 1943 he was indeed arrested, but his wife managed to confer the Diary to Maryna Falska, who hid it in the brickwork of the attic. It lay there throughout the war, until Newerly returned from the camps and, with the help of Our Home employee Władysław Cichosz, brought the manuscript to light.

Maryna Falska survived the Old Doctor by only a little more than two years. On 7 September 1944, the Nazis came to Bielany and gave Falska a notice of eviction for the wards and staff. When she found out, she died suddenly of a broken heart (Or by taking poison? We will never know). She was first buried in the garden on the ground of Our Home, where a small cemetery was arranged by the rebel hospital during the war. After the war, Falska’s remains were reinterred at the Powązki cemetery.

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Maryna Falska Square in Warsaw’s Bielany, photo: razemdlabielan.waw.pl

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Life goes on

Children returned to Our Home shortly after the liberation of Warsaw in March 1945. In November, the Our Home Association ceased to exist, and the reigns of its governance were passed to the Workers’ Society of Friends of Children and the Ministry of Education. In 1946, Our Home was renamed in honour of Maryna Falska. During Stalin’s rule, the orphanage was first renamed to the Felix Dzerzhinsky Youth Home and then to State Children’s Home No. 1. Only after the ‘thaw’ did it return to the name of its founder and to Korczak and Falska’s methods, and during the wave of political change in the 1990s, the Our Home Association was reborn and continues to exist today.

In 2015, a memorial plaque was placed on the outside of Our Home and in 2017, thanks to the efforts of residents and the administration of the Bielany district, Maryna Falska Square was unveiled right next to it. Falska’s spirit continues to live on in the house into which she poured so much energy, knowledge, work and love.

The author of this article would like to thank the chairperson of the Polish Society of Janusz Korczak, Barbara Sochal and the director of the Korczakianum Research and Document Centre, Marta Ciesielska for their help with finding material.

Originally written in Russian.

^Sources

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children's literature

Secret Polish Histories