Newerly Igor

Newerly, Igor (Abramow, Jerzy) Author Igor (Jerzy) Abramow, known by his pen name Igor Newerly, was for many years the personal secretary of educator and children’s author Janusz Korczak, and editor-in-chief of the children’s newspaper Mały Przegląd. Newerly, who did a great deal for Korczak’s orphanage, remained loyal to Korczak even after the occupation. In spite of his disability he would steal into the ghetto to bring Korczak false papers and money. Newerly took part in finding hiding places for Jews that had fled from the ghetto, and his home was always open to his Jewish friends to be used as a temporary shelter until a safer place could be found. Among those he helped were his colleagues from Mały Przegląd, Kuba Herzstein and Lejzor Czarnobroda. Newerly was arrested for his part in saving Jews, and in 1943, was sent to the Majdanek concentration camp. From there, he was sent to other concentration camps, until he finally ended up in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, from where he was liberated at the end of the war. Newerly’s friends, both Jews and gentiles, remember him as a man who abhorred antisemitism and racism, and who did not hesitate to risk his life to help Jews in distress. In his book Żywe wiązanie, published in 1966, Newerly described his close relationship with Janusz Korczak and his orphanage in Warsaw. On October 26, 1982, Yad Vashem recognized Igor Newerly (Abramow) as Righteous Among the Nations.