Children`s Parliament

[Bonobo]

The Children`s Day on 1 June as an important holiday in Poland is celebrated in many ways. One of them is inviting pupils and students to the Parliament. They give speeches, critisising or complementing the government, commenting on the current affairs, rejecting or approving of the EU etc etc. They also vote.

Before you ask, yes, my students also take part in those sittings.

[pjotr]

When I read the titel Children`s Parliament in the Through the viewfinder 2 - events department of this Forum I immediately thought about Janusz Korczak and his Dom Sierot in Warsaw, the orphanage of his own design for Jewish children in which he formed a kind-of-a-republic for children with its own small Children`s Parliament, court, and a newspaper.


Janusz Korczak


Janusz Korczak with the children in 1920s

In 1911–1912 he became a director of Dom Sierot in Warsaw, the orphanage of his own design for Jewish children. He hired Wilczyńska as his assistant. There he formed a kind-of-a-republic for children with its own small parliament, court, and a newspaper. He reduced his other duties as a doctor. Some of his descriptions of the summer camp for Jewish children in this period and subsequently, were later published in his Fragmenty Utworów and have been translated into English.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Korczak

[pjotr]

Filip Mazurczak2
You say that the Russian underground tried to get Korczak out of the Warsaw Ghetto. Do you not mean the Polish underground perchance? Żegota tried to get Korczak out of the ghetto, and Andrzej Wajda's film Korczak shows this.

Henry Abramson2
Thank you for this correction!