Bangkok - The Janusz Korzack School - inspired by a Polish-Jewish Holocaust hero - on Tuesday officially opened its first Southeast Asian outlet in Bangkok's notorious Klong Toey slum. The school's launch at Klong Toey's Mercy Centre was presided over by Father Joe Maier, the Israeli and Polish ambassadors to Thailand and the centre's Thai classical dance troupe. Korzack was a Holocaust-era orphanage director in Warsaw, Poland, remembered for accompanying his 200 children on their march to the Treblinka death camp.
"I am happy to celebrate someone who is a hero in Poland and Israel and has now become a hero in part of Thailand," said Polish Ambassador Bodgan Goraicyk.
The Mercy Centre, co-founded by Catholic priest Maier, has provided education, an AIDS hospice, and community support to the poorest people living in Klong Toey, Bangkok's largest slum. It was founded in 1974.
Klong Toey's Janusz Korzack school currently has 17 pupils including an autistic boy who possesses a genius with maps and Latin-termed wildlife words, a blind child that was born and raised in a municipal garbage dump and a handful of other children that have fallen behind in public education, directors said.
Maier said students at the school consider "Uncle Janusz" one of their greatest heroes and know him by his balding image on photographs displayed at the school and for his dedication to poor and disadvantaged children.
