Pani Stefa and the Orphans: Out of the Shadow of Korczak

By Magdalena Kicińska

At a moment when communists were engineering a New Man, and Zionists a New Jew, a doctor and a teacher devoted themselves to a social experiment: raising a new child. Their orphanage is set amidst the desperate poverty of Jewish Warsaw; often the children are not orphans, but rather children of mothers unable to care for them, making their way out of rat-infested rooms with dirt floors or frozen cellars. In this polyphonic work of literary non-fiction, Magdalena Kicinska shifts the gaze from the legendary Dr. Korczak to the inscrutable Pani Stefa. Artfully - in a style reminiscent of Hanna Krall and Agata Tuszynska - the author pieces together a story of a life: a Polish Jewess who spoke French but not Yiddish; a pedagogue who was as demanding as she was self-sacrificing; a lonely woman who rarely in her life had a moment of privacy. In doing so, Kicinska shows us how it is sometimes the drama of history's minor characters, which can cast the most penetrating light on their world.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1912676788
• ISBN13: 9781912676781
• Release Date: July 2021
• Publisher: Vallentine Mitchell
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 9.0"