
A Light in the Darkness
Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and the Holocaust
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $18.00
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Stefan Rudnicki
-
By:
-
Albert Marrin
About this listen
From National Book Award Finalist Albert Marrin comes the moving story of Janusz Korczak, the heroic Polish Jewish doctor who devoted his life to children, perishing with them in the Holocaust.
Janusz Korczak was more than a good doctor. He was a hero. The Dr. Spock of his day, he established orphanages run on his principle of honoring children and shared his ideas with the public in books and on the radio. He famously said that "children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today". Korczak was a man ahead of his time, whose work ultimately became the basis for the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
Korczak was also a Polish Jew on the eve of World War II. He turned down multiple opportunities for escape, standing by the children in his orphanage as they became confined to the Warsaw Ghetto. Dressing them in their Sabbath finest, he led their march to the trains and ultimately perished with his children in Treblinka.
But this book is much more than a biography. In it, renowned nonfiction master Albert Marrin examines not just Janusz Korczak's life but his ideology of children: that children are valuable in and of themselves, as individuals. He contrasts this with Adolf Hitler's life and his ideology of children: that children are nothing more than tools of the state.
And throughout, Marrin draws listeners into the Warsaw Ghetto. What it was like. How it was run. How Jews within and Poles without responded. Who worked to save lives and who tried to enrich themselves on other people's suffering. And how one man came to represent the conscience and the soul of humanity.
This is an unforgettable portrait of a man whose compassion in even the darkest hours reminds us what is possible.
©2019 Albert Marrin (P)2019 Listening LibraryListeners also enjoyed...
-
Beyond the Tracks
- A WW2 Novel Based on Harrowing True Events
- By: Michael Reit
- Narrated by: Mike Paul
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Jewish families of Berlin start disappearing in nightly raids, 21-year-old Jacob Kagan knows it’s only a matter of time before the trucks come for him. Along with his family and best friend, he flees the country he’s always called home to find shelter in a Dutch refugee camp. Before long, the Netherlands falls to the Nazi war machine - Jacob’s new home is transformed into a transit camp with weekly trains bound for the horrors of the Eastern concentration camps.
-
-
Beyond
- By Ellen, Ontario, Canada on 01-16-22
By: Michael Reit
-
The Daughter of Auschwitz
- My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope
- By: Tova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A powerful memoir by one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz, Tova Friedman, following her childhood growing up during the Holocaust and surviving a string of near-death experiences in a Jewish ghetto, a Nazi labor camp, and Auschwitz.
-
-
Very interesting and well told
- By Tracy F. on 03-31-23
By: Tova Friedman, and others
-
A Train Near Magdeburg
- A Teacher's Journey into the Holocaust
- By: Matthew Rozell
- Narrated by: Nick Cracknell
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of The Things Our Fathers Saw in the World War II eyewitness history series comes this book, offering the true story behind an iconic photograph taken at the liberation of a death train, deep in the heart of Nazi Germany. It's brought to life by the history teacher who discovered it and went on to reunite hundreds of Holocaust survivors with the actual American soldiers who saved them.
-
-
important story
- By Amazon Customer on 04-04-20
By: Matthew Rozell
-
The Good Assassin
- How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia
- By: Stephan Talty
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The untold story of an Israeli spy’s epic journey to bring the notorious Butcher of Latvia to justice - a case that altered the fates of all ex-Nazis.
-
-
Wonderful: A complete history wrapped in a story
- By Aaron on 04-22-20
By: Stephan Talty
-
Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century
- By: Alexandra Popoff
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If Vasily Grossman's 1961 masterpiece, Life and Fate, had been published during his lifetime, it would have reached the world together with Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and before Solzhenitsyn's Gulag. But Life and Fate was seized by the Russian KGB. When it emerged posthumously, decades later, it was recognized as the War and Peace of the 20th century.
-
-
What? Nazism = communism?
- By James Messelbeck on 06-25-19
By: Alexandra Popoff
-
The House of Government
- A Saga of the Russian Revolution
- By: Yuri Slezkine, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 45 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction. The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment.
-
-
Inside saga of the leaders of Bolshevism & the USSR
- By Edward V. Blanchard on 11-05-17
By: Yuri Slezkine, and others
-
Beyond the Tracks
- A WW2 Novel Based on Harrowing True Events
- By: Michael Reit
- Narrated by: Mike Paul
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When the Jewish families of Berlin start disappearing in nightly raids, 21-year-old Jacob Kagan knows it’s only a matter of time before the trucks come for him. Along with his family and best friend, he flees the country he’s always called home to find shelter in a Dutch refugee camp. Before long, the Netherlands falls to the Nazi war machine - Jacob’s new home is transformed into a transit camp with weekly trains bound for the horrors of the Eastern concentration camps.
-
-
Beyond
- By Ellen, Ontario, Canada on 01-16-22
By: Michael Reit
-
The Daughter of Auschwitz
- My Story of Resilience, Survival and Hope
- By: Tova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A powerful memoir by one of the youngest survivors of Auschwitz, Tova Friedman, following her childhood growing up during the Holocaust and surviving a string of near-death experiences in a Jewish ghetto, a Nazi labor camp, and Auschwitz.
-
-
Very interesting and well told
- By Tracy F. on 03-31-23
By: Tova Friedman, and others
-
A Train Near Magdeburg
- A Teacher's Journey into the Holocaust
- By: Matthew Rozell
- Narrated by: Nick Cracknell
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the author of The Things Our Fathers Saw in the World War II eyewitness history series comes this book, offering the true story behind an iconic photograph taken at the liberation of a death train, deep in the heart of Nazi Germany. It's brought to life by the history teacher who discovered it and went on to reunite hundreds of Holocaust survivors with the actual American soldiers who saved them.
-
-
important story
- By Amazon Customer on 04-04-20
By: Matthew Rozell
-
The Good Assassin
- How a Mossad Agent and a Band of Survivors Hunted Down the Butcher of Latvia
- By: Stephan Talty
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The untold story of an Israeli spy’s epic journey to bring the notorious Butcher of Latvia to justice - a case that altered the fates of all ex-Nazis.
-
-
Wonderful: A complete history wrapped in a story
- By Aaron on 04-22-20
By: Stephan Talty
-
Vasily Grossman and the Soviet Century
- By: Alexandra Popoff
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If Vasily Grossman's 1961 masterpiece, Life and Fate, had been published during his lifetime, it would have reached the world together with Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago and before Solzhenitsyn's Gulag. But Life and Fate was seized by the Russian KGB. When it emerged posthumously, decades later, it was recognized as the War and Peace of the 20th century.
-
-
What? Nazism = communism?
- By James Messelbeck on 06-25-19
By: Alexandra Popoff
-
The House of Government
- A Saga of the Russian Revolution
- By: Yuri Slezkine, Claire Bloom - director
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 45 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction. The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment.
-
-
Inside saga of the leaders of Bolshevism & the USSR
- By Edward V. Blanchard on 11-05-17
By: Yuri Slezkine, and others
-
The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Ignat Solzhenitsyn
- Length: 21 hrs and 53 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Nobel Prize winner’s towering masterpiece of world literature, the searing record of four decades of terror and oppression, in one abridged volume (authorized by the author). Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Mandatory reading in Russia, not USA. Why?
- By Arlon James on 11-07-20
-
Say Nothing
- A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland
- By: Patrick Radden Keefe
- Narrated by: Matthew Blaney
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.
-
-
On a par with I'll Be Gone in the Dark, plus...
- By Grace O'Malley on 03-01-19
-
"Promise Me You'll Shoot Yourself"
- The Mass Suicide of Ordinary Germans in 1945
- By: Florian Huber
- Narrated by: Sam Peter Jackson
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By the end of April 1945 in Germany, the Third Reich had fallen and invasion was underway. As the Red Army advanced, horrifying stories spread about the depravity of its soldiers. For many German people, there seemed to be nothing left but disgrace and despair. For tens of thousands of them, the only option was to choose death - for themselves and for their children.
-
-
This book should be required reading for anyone that seeks to understand how ordinary people could be transformed into monsters.
- By Anonymous User on 05-08-20
By: Florian Huber
-
A Long Petal of the Sea
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende, Nick Caistor, Amanda Hopkinson
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the late 1930s, civil war grips Spain. When General Franco and his Fascists succeed in overthrowing the government, hundreds of thousands are forced to flee in a treacherous journey over the mountains to the French border. Among them is Roser, a pregnant young widow, who finds her life intertwined with that of Victor Dalmau, an army doctor and the brother of her deceased love. In order to survive, the two must unite in a marriage neither of them desires.
-
-
Impressive
- By Jean on 05-24-20
By: Isabel Allende, and others
-
The Gulag Archipelago, Volume 1
- An Experiment in Literary Investigation
- By: Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 25 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Volume 1 of the gripping epic masterpiece, Solzhenitsyn's chilling report of his arrest and interrogation, which exposed to the world the vast bureaucracy of secret police that haunted Soviet society. Features a new foreword by Anne Applebaum.
-
-
Should be required reading in US schools
- By Richard on 01-01-21
-
The Escape Artist
- The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World
- By: Jonathan Freedland
- Narrated by: Jonathan Freedland
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In April 1944, Rudolf Vrba became one of the very first Jews to escape from Auschwitz and make his way to freedom—among only a tiny handful who ever pulled off that near-impossible feat. He did it to reveal the truth of the death camp to the world—and to warn the last Jews of Europe what fate awaited them. Against all odds, Vrba and his fellow escapee, Fred Wetzler, climbed mountains, crossed rivers, and narrowly missed German bullets until they had smuggled out the first full account of Auschwitz the world had ever seen.
-
-
Good
- By Matt on 11-10-22
-
Our Bodies, Their Battlefields
- War Through the Lives of Women
- By: Christina Lamb
- Narrated by: Antonia Beamish
- Length: 13 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Our Bodies, Their Battlefields, longtime intrepid war correspondent Christina Lamb makes us witness to the lives of women in wartime. An award-winning war correspondent for 25 years (she’s never had a female editor) Lamb reports two wars - the “bang-bang” war and the story of how the people behind the lines live and survive.
-
-
Sad story but necessary
- By Liz on 05-26-21
By: Christina Lamb
-
The School That Escaped the Nazis
- The True Story of the Schoolteacher Who Defied Hitler
- By: Deborah Cadbury
- Narrated by: Julie Teal
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By 1931, Anna Essinger had read Mein Kampf and knew that Hitler’s world view was violent, utterly destructive, and that many of her pupils in her small progressive school in Herrlingen, Germany were in terrible danger. She decided that in order to offer them a refuge, and a future, she must first move her school entirely out of the Nazis’ reach. So, she did just that, creating a safe haven in Kent, England.
-
-
Thank you
- By Jennifer Baratta She/Her on 03-11-25
By: Deborah Cadbury
-
The Rape of Nanking
- By: Iris Chang
- Narrated by: Anna Fields
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In December 1937, in the capital of China, one of the most brutal massacres in the long annals of wartime barbarity occurred. The Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking and within weeks not only looted and burned the defenseless city but systematically raped, tortured and murdered more than 300,000 Chinese civilians. Amazingly, the story of this atrocity- one of the worst in world history- continues to be denied by the Japanese government.
-
-
Powerful
- By Douglas on 09-05-09
By: Iris Chang
-
My Brother's Keeper
- Christians Who Risked All to Protect Jewish Targets of the Nazi Holocaust
- By: Rod Gragg
- Narrated by: Rick Zieff
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
My Brother's Keeper unfolds powerful stories of Christians from across denominations who gave everything they had to save the Jewish people from the evils of the Holocaust. This unlikely group of believers, later honored by the nation of Israel as Righteous Among the Nations, included ordinary teenage girls, pastors, priests, a German army officer, a former Italian fascist, an international spy, and even a princess.
By: Rod Gragg
-
The Stable Boy of Auschwitz
- By: Henry Oster, Dexter Ford
- Narrated by: William Hope, Susan Oster, Dexter Ford, and others
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One hot, humid day in July 1944, the Gestapo abducted 15-year-old Henry and his mother, forcing them onto cramped cattle cars in the Łódź Polish Ghetto. Like so many Jews before them, they had been selected to disappear–they were being sent to Auschwitz.
-
-
Incredible
- By Kindle Customer on 04-30-23
By: Henry Oster, and others
-
The Greatest Evil Is War
- By: Chris Hedges
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 5 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In fifteen short chapters, Chris Hedges astonishes us with his clear and cogent argument against war, not on philosophical grounds or through moral arguments, but in an irrefutable stream of personal encounters with the victims of war, from veterans and parents to gravely wounded American serviceman who served in the Iraq War, to survivors of the Holocaust, to soldiers in the Falklands War, among others. Hedges reported from Sarajevo, and was in the Balkans to witness the collapse of the Soviet Union.
-
-
Another amazing title by an amazing journalist.
- By Zzzing on 12-28-22
By: Chris Hedges
Critic reviews
“Painful yet profound." (Booklist, Starred Review)
What listeners say about A Light in the Darkness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Mark P sr
- 12-21-24
The Best Book that I have ever listened to
Totally informative towards History and the current Antisemitism
I learned so much
I’m Polish and never knew the History between Poles and Jews
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ryan K.
- 04-03-22
Emotionally Heavy Read, Necessary Reminder
Marrin delivers living history through facts, quotes from diaries, war-time poems, and vivid imagery of how inhumanely the Nazis treated the Polish Jews, focusing on the Warsaw Ghetto. He writes history in a very accessible way that sticks with the reader.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Polar Bear
- 07-06-24
Misleading Title Not About Janusz Korczak
"A Light in the Darkness: Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and the Holocaust" was disappointing as this book isn't really about Janusz Korczak. It is not a biography of the courageous Jewish doctor that took in orphans in the Warsaw Ghetto. And most notably known for going to his death along with his orphans at Triblinka. I would have liked to learn more of this courageous man but this book is a condensed history of the Holocaust in Poland during WWII. If you've done considerable research on the Holocaust, then you learn nothing new and you learn very little of Janusz Korczak. I think his name in the title was used for marketing because maybe 10% but probably less is about Korczak. Very disappointing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!