Israel may boycott an international conference in commemoration of Janusz Korczak, because the Polish authorities intend to hold it on Yom Kippur. Education Minister Zevulun Hammer suggested that such action be taken if the Poles refuse to change the date of the gathering. Furthermore, in a letter Hammer sent today to the Israel Janusz Korczak Committee, he said he had heard that the Poles have already turned down the idea.
“It seems to me, ” wrote Hammer, “that this refusal constitutes an insult to the Jewish public. Janusz Korczak was a Jew and was murdered in the Holocaust because of his Jewishness. It would therefore have been proper to have taken his people’s feelings into account, “Hammer wrote. Korczak, whose real name was Henryk Goldszmit, was a pediatrician in Warsaw. When the Nazis captured the city he was instrumental in saving the lives of countless children.
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