The Teacher of Warsaw by Mario Escobar is a book about a teacher in Warsaw named Janusz Korczak who does just about anything to protect and provide for the children that lived in his school.

It was everything that you would expect from a WW2 book, even more so, in my opinion. Several graphic scenes that were really hard to stomach, which may have been necessary for readers to truly grasp what happened then. Sometimes the book was hard to get into with a lot of different teachings from the teacher and sometimes the story didn't flow. Overall, it was a good read and important for us to know about so I am glad that I read another area of WW2 that I didn't know anything about.

Thank you Net Galley for the early release of this book for my honest review.

Book Review: The Teacher of Warsaw by Mario Escobar
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I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
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This book is everything I love about historical novels. Before I get deeper into my review, let me tell you why I love historical novels, especially WWII. WWII historical novels have a way of making my heart hurt, my stomach churn with nausea, and anger boil my blood. I don’t typically cry while reading, but I have cried during WWII novels. WWII was the epitome of evil, while also revealing some of the best of human kind. While I feel all of these strong, uncomfortable and negative emotions, I also feel immense gratitude. Gratitude for my life and my family. I reflect on my faith and the role it has in my life. They also give me hope that even during the darkest of times there are angelic heroes on earth.
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Janusz Korczak was one of these heroes. Right away I am drawn into this book with the profound thoughts on life and the inevitability of disaster and death. I am in awe of his ability to look evil in the face and stand for what he believes in. His view on life, and the role faith and hope have, is inspiring. The overarching theme, to me, was love. According to Janis’s Korczak, “Love is what gives weight to life.” Love is what makes our lives worth living.
Mario Escobar is an incredible author who paints such a vivid picture, it feels like the real world fades away and I am a bystander in the book. He clearly put so much work and study into this book. I don’t usually highlight passages, but this book was so inspiring that I found myself highlighting so much. This book makes me hold my family a little closer, and be grateful for every blessing in my life.

Reading this novel in light of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia was absolutely heartbreaking. I frequently found the novel difficult to keep reading (not because there was something wrong with the book, but because my heart was too heavy). It's a well-composed novel, and the author has done enough research to make the setting believable even to this native Pole. Do not recommend if you're world-war-weary, but it's certainly an important novel to consider.

Powerful, profoundly sad, and yet inspiring historical fiction, THE TEACHER OF WARSAW is based on the true story of Janusz Korczak, who headed up a Jewish orphanage in Poland on the eve of World War II, when the books begins. If you know anything about history, you know this is not going to go well.

60-year-old Janusz is a dedicated physician, a respected educator, and well-known in his Warsaw community. Though more agnostic than religious, he is unfailingly kind and open to all -- friends, staff, and children. Above all, the care for his charges is based on love and seeing each child as an individual. Despite his own growing physical limitations, Janusz puts his wide circle of contacts to work to maintain a semblance of normalcy, for as long as possible. Always confident and encouraging, he puts the needs of those around him ahead of his own. Lessons must continue and he even uses his own storytelling ability to impart wise life lessons to his orphans. A man you have to love and a true hero who inspires.

Not surprisingly, the reason the book is so difficult to read (and I found I sometimes had to take breaks) is because I knew from page one how events would unfold, while Janusz does not. So, as readers, we wind up witnessing the Holocaust almost as if a participant. As some residents of the Warsaw Ghetto begin to consider fighting back, we know they will become part of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. As food becomes increasingly scarce, as disease spreads, as rumors about mass killings and concentration camps begin to circulate, characters in the book may be able to dismiss the information. We, as readers, can't. I found myself braced throughout the book, continually asking just how bad are things going to get?

The book is sensitively and beautifully written by Mario Escobar and translated by Gretchen Abernathy. And I've read few books that have had a greater emotional impact than this one.

Yes, it reminded me of the unimaginable brutality and sadness that surround the Holocaust. But it also reminded me of the amazing optimism and resiliency of human beings and what a remarkable difference a single person can make to the lives of so many. Even in the midst of chaos.

So many years later, I still have a vivid memory of the first time I read about Janusz Korczak, the brilliant paedagogue who revolutionised children's education and, tragically, perished in the Holocaust. It was in a book about the Warsaw Ghetto that compiled eyewitness accounts, one of which (I think it was Marek Edelman, who also appears in this novel) describes the episode: a group of hundreds of orphans from the Ghetto's most famous orphanage march through the streets, orderly and without panicking or breaking the pace, to the <i>Umschlagplatz</i>, the train station from where they'd be shipped to the Treblinka gas chambers. At the head of this troop is their teacher, the Old Doctor, two of the smallest children with him, and a boy violinist that plays and plays throughout their march to the station. It's tragic, heartwrenching, and infuriating, and also fills you with awe at the level of courage and dignity of such small souls.

The man that fostered such courage and dignity deserves statues and all the honours in the world. Janusz Korczak was a Jew from Poland, assimilated and non-observant, not that the Germans gave a fig anyhow, whose original profession was medicine and whose grand passion in life were children. Big-hearted and warm as he was, he worried about the least favoured amongst children the most: orphans, and so he created a model orphanage in Warsaw he called Dom Sierot, the first and most known of the orphanages he led, where he had the help and unconditional support of another big-hearted lover of children, Stefania Wilczyńska, also a key character in this novel, until the bitter end. Besides managing orphanages and having educational programmes on the radio that made him famous locally, Doctor Korczak was an earnest advocate for the rights of children, on which he worked so tirelessly and passionately he's the reason there's a Declaration of the Rights of Children and Adolescents formally enshrined by the United Nations. He laid out not only the groundwork but the philosophy as well, a legacy that's enormous on its own and lasts to this day. The man did so much for children he should be far more known and lauded than he is.

Mario Escóbar's novel brings this extraordinary human being to life through a fictionalised rendition of Korczak's diaries, that survived the razing of the Warsaw Ghetto, and he paints the image of a man so lovable and full of life your heart breaks at the knowledge of how it'll all end. The Old Doctor is witty, wise, patient, meek. But also a rebel that doesn't accept indignities that are too much for his sense of self to tolerate, so he refuses to wear the infamous armband with a Star of David that's mandatory for all Jews. Miraculously, the Germans prefer to play blind chicken at this, for the most part, and thus the Old Doctor is able to make a stand in his own way.

And make a stand he does. Part of his larger-scale rebellion is preserving the lives of "his children," the useless mouths to feed that Nazis want eliminated first because they can't exploit as slave labour or rob of their property. Unmarried and childless himself, Korczak sees them as the children he never had, and always finds ways to get food for his children, begging, cajoling, arguing, and downright buttering up wealthy donors. Nothing is too much of a sacrifice if it feeds his little ones. And he doesn't look the other way when he sees children outside of his orphanage that he's unable to help; he bleeds for every child in the street he finds. And to save the children he did have with him, he conspired to work with the secret rescue missions of Jewish children undertaken by Gentiles like Irena Sendler and the Father Boduen network, that managed to save thousands of Jewish children by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto before and when the liquidations started.

Korczak wanted all his children safe, but he didn't want safety for himself if it meant leaving them. He was offered many times by the underground resistance to be smuggled out of the Ghetto with forged papers, and he refused each time. He refused for the last time on the very <i>Umschlagplatz</i>, where a last-ditch attempt to rescue him was made. He didn't want to abandon his children, he didn't want them to go alone and feel unloved, and together with Stefania, chose to share their fate in the extermination camp.

The march of the children I mentioned before is included in this novel, accurately and touchingly, and it's the last scene we see Korczak in, for the epilogue is added by the fictional character the author chose to wrap up the story. Personally, I would've liked for the last scene to be at Treblinka, with Korczak's thoughts as the mental ending to his diaries instead. But perhaps it'd have been too unbearably painful for readers if it had ended like that. I remember an Auschwitz survivor once described a group of children in the "changing room" area that marched towards the gas chamber in an orderly line like trained Boy Scouts, and singing. <i>Singing!</i> I would like to think the end at Treblinka for Korczak's children was like that, unafraid because their beloved Teacher was with them.

It's just so painful to think about. But it's worth learning about this lesser known fact of WWII, as Korczak and his children don't tend to be the focus of history books as much. It's not a perfect novel, it has some flaws, but for once the portrayal of this great man and the story told here make me award it the highest rating without hesitation.

The Teacher of Warsaw was gut-wrenching. Everyone who reads will leave with a better perspective on life and love and the meaning of it all.

I have to say this is my kind of book. Historical fiction, inspired by a real-life hero this is a story that will tug at your heartstrings. It is emotional, is a story you will think of even after you have finished reading it.

Set during WWII it is a tale of destruction, life changing events that you could never imagine you could live through and a man who went to all ends to protect the children, his students, the best he can. It tells of tragedy yet courage, devastation yet hope and the love and strength, goodness and kindness of so many people.

I loved this book and would highly recommend it as it is a book that will stir up emotions of all kinds and it will make you think and feel.

I adore historical fiction, and this is such an interesting premise. I recommend because of the story itself, writing style, and its ability to transport you into a different world/time period.

I appreciate the opportunity to have the chance to read The Teacher of Warsaw before publication. Unfortunately at the point it's a DNF, the writing was good I just struggled to get into it. Hopefully I can try again at a later date and I'll update my review at that time.

The Teacher of Warsaw by Mario Escobar is a horrific portrayal of life inside the Warsaw Ghetto. Lots of horrible descriptions of the reality of this place. Lots of hurt, hunger, and dismay, but the Teacher overshines all this darkness and always puts the love of the children above his own. He keeps telling his other helpers to leave and escape. Help the children escape. He went to the prison a number of times for standing up for the little man. He sought out food for the children on a daily basis. The plot is completely different than most World War II novels that I have read because I knew about the ghetto's, but I honestly, cannot recall any other story that takes place inside these places. A dark and humbling time in European's history. If readers are a fan of World War II, then this is a great novel to pick up. I learned so more about World War II. I saw the good sprinkled in with the bad and saw the shining light of the heart of man.
I received a complimentary copy of The Teacher of Warsaw by Mario Escobar from Harper Muse Publishing, but the opinions stated are all my own.

Mario Escobar crafted a truly heart-wrenching yet vitally important story, especially for these times. Learning and remembering what happened in WWII is critical. While poignant and difficult to read, the atrocious, widespread evil, genocide, ethnic and religious hatred; and those who sacrificially worked against all odds to save others must be examined and addressed. The shining light throughout the book is the love in action of key characters, including Dr. Kkorczak, Irena Sendler and the teachers and tutors of the orphanage.

I received a copy of the book without obligation. This review is my opinion.

I found this book very difficult to read. It was absolutely heartbreaking. The man at the center of the story is based on a real person. Reading about the daily life in the Warsaw ghetto was hard for me. The man who did his best to care for and protect the orphans was truly an inspirational person. I thank NetGalley for the opportunity to read this Advance Review Copy.

An emotional book to read based on true events . It was easy to read and l did enjoy it. At times l was very apprehensive and worried but can honestly recommend that you read this book.

This is a story of WWII historical fiction. In 1939, a teacher at a Jewish orphanage and his students' lives are altered when Nazis invade Warsaw. The teacher, Janusz Korczak, vows to do everything in his power to protect his students. The story is inspired by a real-life hero of the Holocaust and is equal parts inspiring, devastating, and gut-wrenching. I found the plot moving and was emotionally invested in the characters immediately. I finished the book within a day because I could not put it down..

The Teacher of Warsaw
By Mario Escobar

A story well-told of the hardships faced by the Jews during the Ghetto years. The story follows the life of 60 year old Janusz Korczak and the teaching staff and children living in his orphanage in Warsaw from September 1st 1939.
It is a tale of humanity and how one man can bring stability, hope, and love when the world being lived in is in chaos and struggling for survival. While Mario has created a masterpiece of fiction it is based on the story recorded in his journal by Janusz Korczak who a real hero of Warsaw in this time is. As the book unfolds Janusz takes a stand against his city; against the Nazi and ultimately against some of his own people not for his own survival but to save the lives of hundreds of orphaned children.

It is an unforgettable tale. This book is a must read for all. It is a story which leave us all asking “What would I choose to do?”

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to glimpse the world through the eyes of a fellow teacher.

The Teacher of Warsaw is based on the true story of a courageous polish jew who tried to protect the lives of young Jewish orphans during World War 2 in Poland. I really enjoyed the style of the author and look forward to reading more from the author in the future.

A truly inspirational novel of the hardships and terrible conditions forced upon the Jewish people in the ghettoes of Warsaw during WW2. How the characters persevered and still found compassion for others was truly magnificent. This book should be on everyone’s reading list for this year. You will not regret it!

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

OMG what a book. I have read many books that tell the story of WWII, none of them measure up to this one. Mario Escobar is an excellent author, he pulls no punches and this book is no fairy tale story. You feel the emotion of Janusz Korczak, his love for the children, you too are in the ghetto and feel the fear that surrounds you. It is so compelling, a book you cannot put down as you read man's inhumanity to man, the good vs. the evil. A story soon not to be forgotten, to know in a world of hate, there are those who are kind and who love steadfastly! My thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Teacher of Warsaw was outstanding I've read about this Teacher by another author and it was breath taking as well. have nothing but admiration for what he done so freely of his time I can't praise this book enough.

A truly beautiful story of a man who gave his life for what he believed in. There is much to be learned from Janusz Korczak and his views of the world.