A Light in the Darkness

Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and the Holocaust

By: Albert Marrin

Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki

From National Book Award Finalist Albert Marrin comes the moving story of Janusz Korczak, the heroic Polish Jewish doctor who devoted his life to children, perishing with them in the Holocaust.

Janusz Korczak was more than a good doctor. He was a hero. The Dr. Spock of his day, he established orphanages run on his principle of honoring children and shared his ideas with the public in books and on the radio. He famously said that "children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today." Korczak was a man ahead of his time, whose work ultimately became the basis for the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child.

Korczak was also a Polish Jew on the eve of World War II. He turned down multiple opportunities for escape, standing by the children in his orphanage as they became confined to the Warsaw Ghetto. Dressing them in their Sabbath finest, he led their march to the trains and ultimately perished with his children in Treblinka.

But this book is much more than a biography. In it, renowned nonfiction master Albert Marrin examines not just Janusz Korczak's life but his ideology of children: that children are valuable in and of themselves, as individuals. He contrasts this with Adolf Hitler's life and his ideology of children: that children are nothing more than tools of the state.

And throughout, Marrin draws readers into the Warsaw Ghetto. What it was like. How it was run. How Jews within and Poles without responded. Who worked to save lives and who tried to enrich themselves on other people's suffering. And how one man came to represent the conscience and the soul of humanity.

This is an unforgettable portrait of a man whose compassion in even the darkest hours reminds us what is possible.

Critic reviews

YALSA Excellence In Nonfiction Award Winner

“Painful yet profound.” –Booklist, Starred Review

“It’s a harrowing book, complete with harrowing photographs, that’s insightful about connections to other historical events without losing sight of its main topic; its emphasis on youth experience, both in Korczak’s orphanage and elsewhere, adds a dimension often undertreated in other explorations of the topic.” —Bulletin

Misleading Title Not About Janusz Korczak

"A Light in the Darkness: Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and the Holocaust" was disappointing as this book isn't really about Janusz Korczak. It is not a biography of the courageous Jewish doctor that took in orphans in the Warsaw Ghetto. And most notably known for going to his death along with his orphans at Triblinka. I would have liked to learn more of this courageous man but this book is a condensed history of the Holocaust in Poland during WWII. If you've done considerable research on the Holocaust, then you learn nothing new and you learn very little of Janusz Korczak. I think his name in the title was used for marketing because maybe 10% but probably less is about Korczak. Very disappointing.

The Best Book that I have ever listened to

Totally informative towards History and the current Antisemitism
I learned so much
I’m Polish and never knew the History between Poles and Jews

Emotionally Heavy Read, Necessary Reminder

Marrin delivers living history through facts, quotes from diaries, war-time poems, and vivid imagery of how inhumanely the Nazis treated the Polish Jews, focusing on the Warsaw Ghetto. He writes history in a very accessible way that sticks with the reader.