The Legacy of Janusz Korzcak
Artist: Christine Freib
Sculpture: Guardian Angel
Angels: A benevolent being that acts as an intermediary between heaven and earth, especially in Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Zoroastrianism.
I don’t know where guardian angels were on August 5th when the Germans came to liquidate the orphanage under the care of Janusz Korczak. He had been given the opportunity many times to escape from the ghetto and save his life. But he refused to abandon the children and he walked with 200 children into death. He had done his best to be a guardian angel to his children. If he could not protect them, he determined that he would die with them in dignity.
Janusz Korcazk is honored today, not because he was a martyr, a great doctor, a writer or a great educator. He was all these things. But he is honored for his deep belief in and his love for the most neglected and poorest children and his commitment to them. It was a commitment that insured that he would surely also die at the hands of the Nazis.
My sculpture consists of symbolic elements. The Plexiglas tube represents the chimney of the crematorium. The angels serve as intermediaries who take the souls of the children into heaven. The blue marbles represent the souls of the children who died with Janusz Korczak. I used blue to depict the souls of the children because the pigment, Prussian Blur, is an element found in cyanide from which the nerve gas Zyclon-B, that killed them, was made. The marble base is my attempt to honor brave, strong and beautiful human being, Janusz Korcazk.