Dedicated in loving memory of Magda Fried (1929-1985) by her family as a symbol of remembrance to the Omaha community. Magda was a Holocaust Survivor who, as a teenager, lost over 50 family members in the gas chambers. She was honored in a White House ceremony by President Reagan for her years of testimony and education about the Holocaust.
“As long as there is life there is hope”
In 1978, sculptor Boris Saktsier’s award-winning bronze sculpture “Janusz Korczak and the Children” was installed at Yad Vashem, Israel’s National Holocaust Memorial. The original artwork stands approximately 6 feet tall in the Janusz Korczak Square in the museum gardens.
Janusz Korczak, physician, author, educator, and pedagogue from Warsaw, devoted his life to the study and development of childhood potential, regardless of nationality and religion. During WWII, he and his fellow educators refused to abandon the Jewish orphans in their ward in the Warsaw Ghetto. After Korczak declined the opportunity to save himself, they were deported together and perished at the Treblinka Killing Center in 1942 as part of the Nazi “Final Solution,” the state-sponsored system which persecuted and murdered millions of innocent Jewish men, women, and children, for whom there are no graves.
Korczak’s educational contributions and philosophies are highly regarded and memorialized throughout the world. His moral clarity and courage shine as a bright beacon for all humanity.
“I am not here to be loved and admired, but to act and love. It is not the duty of people to help me, but it is my duty to look after the world, and the people in it.” – Janusz Korczak
