Blumka’s Diary

Warsaw – 92 Krochmalna Street – The Orphans’ Home.

Once, Blumka lived here with Doctor Korczak, Mrs. Stefa, and two hundred children—each with their own small miracle: stories that lit the darkest nights, silver fish saved, peas grown in ears, crumbs falling like gifts from the sky.

Blumka wrote it all down in her diary, adding drawings when words were not enough. Until the day the war broke out.

Though her diary is a thin book, it holds great meaning. As the Old Doctor used to say, “From a thick book one may learn nothing new, but from a thin one—much.”

Blumka’s Diary is a tender story about life in the Orphans’ Home and about the Old Doctor’s message: how to love a child. In words and images, Iwona Chmielewska gently blends fact and fiction, giving faces to children whose names are now carved in stone.