Education Ourside Poland

POLISH EDUCATIONAL PROVISION OUTSIDE POLAND, DURING & AFTER WW2

Educational provision for the youngest generation of Poles who found themselves outside Poland due to the German, and shortly after, Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, was one of the more important tasks that faced Polish social organizations and Polish government authorities in exile. It was plain to the Polish Government in Exile(reconstituted in Paris) and its agencies, the Polish military authorities, and to a whole host of people – mainly from educational circles – that, where means allowed, and wherever it might be possible, it was imperative to establish educational centers, or where these already existed, to provide them with support.

After the evacuation of the Polish government from Paris to London in August 1940, matters of educational provision and schooling were transferred from the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare to the Office for Education, headed by General Józef Haller. From 1941, it had functioned under the name of the ‘Office for Educational Provision and School Matters’. In 1943, this department became the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Education. It was headed by Father Zygmunt Kaczyński and subsequently by Professor Władysław Folkierski, until the end of the war. Given the great geographical scattering of refugee Poles, the Ministry opened its delegation offices in Tehran, Jerusalem, Beirut, Bombay, Nairobi, Santa Rosa (Mexico), and Pahiatua in New Zealand. In some of these locations the offices also served as the delegation offices of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare. The main task of the new ministry was the coordination and supervision of educational provision at all levels – primary, general secondary, vocational, and tertiary – both in Great Britain and beyond, which meant all the countries where refugee Poles were now to be found. The Ministry’s budget was increased annually, rising to over a million pounds sterling in 1945.

Although the Ministry would obviously play the most important role, it was not the only Polish organization involved in the educational field in Great Britain. There was the Council of National Education, an advisory body attached to the office of the minister, the Association of Polish Teachers in Great Britain (active from 1941), and the Committee for the Defence of the Purity of the Polish Language, which all supported the Ministry’s efforts.

The establishment of Polish schools was above all indispensable to ensure that education continued along the lines of pre-1939 curriculum programs and thus provide a supply of well educated people for a post-war Poland. In the initial period of the war, it was assumed that regardless of its duration, the war would end with Poland regaining its independence, enabling its refugees to return. And from the outset, it was obvious that education and schooling could not simply have a purely educational purpose as its only goal. Schooling would have to serve a wider purpose and not just satisfy mere educational requirements. It was planned that it should also teach the language of the country where Polish refugee children found themselves. The need to assure the continuity of links with their native land was also considered. The school’s role was, to some extent seen as missionary. Its role was to hinder or quite simply prevent the process of foreign assimilation that threatened this young Polish generation.

Based on such a premise, it was endeavoured to organize Polish schooling in all the countries where children and young people of school age were living. Special consideration was given to those children who had spent the first years of the war in the Soviet Union. The majority of these were of farming and class background from Poland’s eastern borderlands. These children had lost all contact with Polish education from the time they had been deported to the Soviet Union (after September 1939, some 350,000 Poles were deported). In some cases, this meant from the end of 1939. The deportations continued up to August 1941, the date marking the formation of the Polish Army. These children had either attended Soviet schools where the language of instruction was Russian, or had received no schooling at all.

A map delineating Polish schooling during the war and in the immediate post-war period largely overlaps a comparative map of Polish refugee settlements and altered to reflect the refugees’ wartime and post-war displacements. The years 1942-1944, witnessed large migration movements in the Near East, South Asia, and East Africa, where children and young people that had been evacuated from the Soviet Union in 1942 (about 20,000 were under 18 years of age), ended up. The second period of mass movement occurred after the end of the war and changed the map of Polish schooling abroad.

The first country in which Polish schooling was organized after September 1939, on the initiative of the Polish government authorities in exile, was naturally France. Sometime at the end of October, beginning of November 1939, the Cyprian Norwid Grammar and Secondary School was founded in the premises occupied by the Polish Government in Exile. After the fall of France in summer 1940, it was transferred to Villard-de-Lans. A number of its pupils succeeded in making their way to London. Polish schools continued to function in France, both in the zone occupied by the Germans, as well as the so-called, free zone. These were, in part, schools that had been there before the war, established by previous Polish economic migrants, as well as those most recently established by the Polish authorities in exile. One must also remember that towards the end of 1939, a Polish University had begun to function in Paris. This University was not re-established in London after the transfer of the Polish Government to Great Britain.

September 1940, saw the establishment of the Juliusz Słowacki State Grammar Secondary School for Boys in London, and the Marie Skłodowska-Curie State Grammar and Secondary School for Girls in Scotland, the following year. The establishment of supplementary courses and the Centre for Learning by Correspondence, testify to the growth of Polish schooling provision. Vocational schools were established, among others, a Business Studies Secondary School, as well as maritime studies. The possibility of starting or continuing studies at higher education level was seen as very important. Oxford University had a Polish Faculty of Law, Edinburgh, a Polish Medical Faculty, and Liverpool, a Polish School of Architecture.

During the war, the Near East was one of the more important Polish educational centres. Refugee Poles began to arrive in the area in 1939/40. In the so-called ‘transit countries’, such as Hungary and Romania, Polish schools were also established. In Romania, for example, about 200 persons obtained their school-leaving-certificate during the war. In the second half of 1942, the numbers of Poles already in the Near East (Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt), were swelled by the influx of Polish civilian refugees from the Soviet Union –‘the land of captivity’– who had been evacuated along with the Polish Army under the command of General Władysław Anders.

With the welfare of the youngest exiles uppermost, several youth cadet schools were established. These were based on the Youth Labour Brigades that were first established in Poland in 1936.

The history of such schools in the Near East can be traced back to the formation of the Polish Army in the Soviet Union. The first school of this type, the Youth School – comprised of two companies – was established in Tockoye, where the newly formed Polish 6th Infantry Division was stationed. The next schools were established in Palestine. These were, in order of foundation, the Youth Cadet School – based in Nazareth – and the Younger, and Older Youth General Schools. In summer 1942, the 1st Youth Mechanical School was founded, others of the same type followed later, as well as, the Youth Mechanical Grammar Schools, the Youth Signals School and the Youth Mechanical-Aviation School and a Naval School. In the period 1942-1945, the Commander of these Youth Schools was Colonel Ignacy Bobrowski.

The idea of forming similar youth cadet schools for girls was also considered during the period of formation of the Polish Army in the Soviet Union. These schools were transferred to the Near East where they continued to function as Young Girls Volunteer Schools.

In general, about 5,000 young persons passed through these schools during the war. Looking at the girls’ schools, more than 460 girls passed their school-leaving-certificate examination, compared to about 440 boys – and more than 1,000 boys and girls obtained their lower school-certificate.

As a justified digression, one must mention the problem of obtaining school course books and generally other exercise writing books. Each school, wherever it was, faced the same shortages. Given this insurmountable problem, each teacher had to perform a dual role, on the one hand of lecturer, and on the other, of a walking encyclopaedia of knowledge. Even before the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Education came into being, where possible, and with one eye on the needs of the younger readers, it was decided to launch a broadly based publishing undertaking. That is how arose the idea of producing a series of Polish literary classics entitled ‘Pomniki Literatury Polskiej’ (‘Monuments of Polish Literature’). The series was published in London during years 1941-1942. Books printed in Great Britain were sent to all Polish refugee population centres outside Europe, although this does not mean to say that London was the only place of publishing activity. Many books were also published in the Middle East, where, on the initiative and supervision of Łukasz Kurdybacha, a series entitled ‘Szkolna Bibilioteczka na Wschodzie’ (‘School Library in the East’) was issued. This consisted of reprints and study guides of the classic literary texts of such authors as Kochanowski, Krasicki, Mickiewicz, or Słowacki.

Schoolchildren could also benefit from books published in Jerusalem by the ‘W Drodze’ (‘On Route’) publishing house. Publishing activity was also undertaken by the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare – which issued a beginner’s primer and other readers – as well as by the Polish Community Organizations in America. The Youth Cadet School movement was not the only example of Polish educational activity in the Near East. Both during and after the war, Poles studied at the higher education colleges in Beirut, among others, at the American University and the Higher School of French Literature. With the participation of the Office of Education of the Polish diplomatic representation in Beirut, a Polish School of Painting and Drawing, a Department of Polish Studies – led by Professor Stanisław Kościałkowski – and a Course of Lectures on Polish Law, were established. In 1946, there were 269 Poles studying in Beirut.

In the following years, that number steadily declined, as the Polish colony in Beirut dwindled. In 1948, there were only 50 students.

Not everyone who came out of the Soviet Union reached the Near East. Many young persons found themselves in Persia (Iran) and several thousand children attended schools of various types in Tehran, Ahvaz, and in Esfahan – ‘a city of Polish children.’ For example, in Esfahan, at the end of the war there were 10 primary schools and a coeducational grammar secondary school of humanities, all under the aegis of the agency of the Delegation Office of the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare in Tehran. From spring 1942, to the end of the war, about 2,000 children passed through Esfahan and, among others, received assistance including educational assistance, from the religious congregations of the Sisters of Charity, and the Salesian Fathers. However, for many other children, Iran only proved to be a short stop-over, from where their paths diverged to different, and in some cases, very distant corners of the world.

In 1942-1943, large groups of Poles were transported to Africa and housed in several refugee camps scattered throughout the territories of Tanganyika (today Tanzania), Uganda, Kenya, Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), and Southern Africa (Republic of South Africa). Most of the refugees were settled in the territories of British East Africa (Uganda, Kenya, and Tanganyika). According to estimates, about 17,000 Poles, a large part of this number children, found themselves in Africa. In 1945, about 7,500 children were attending 20 primary schools and 6 secondary and vocational schools. The schooling in Africa, similar to schooling in other countries, was not just aimed at giving the children a general all-round secondary education, but an education that would give them a chance of finding work afterwards, as witnessed by the establishment of schools like the Girls’ School of Good Housekeeping and schools that specialized in commercial studies, dress-making and tailoring, shirt and lingerie making, and mechanical studies.

In India, another destination for Poles from Iran, about 3,000 persons were still attending 6 primary schools and seven secondary schools as late as 1945.

In 1943, about 1,400 people, including 800 children, were transported to Mexico and settled in the Santa Rosa refugee settlement, near the city of Leon. A primary and a grammar school were established for these children. In 1944, a successive group of over 730 children, mostly orphans, were sent to New Zealand. This group included older children of secondary school age that had begun their schooling in Esfahan.

When General Anders’ Polish Second Army Corps arrived in Italy, it was decided to set up educational establishments which would be, in part, a continuation of the work begun in the Near East. In 1945, apart from the establishment of men’s schools, the Second Army Corps’ Women’s Auxiliary Service Grammar Secondary School was set up in Porto San Giorgio. The main movers behind the school were the Inspectorate Service of the Women’s Auxiliary Service and the Department of Education of the Second Army Corps. The pupils were girls who had volunteered to serve with the Women’s Auxiliary Service, those who had served in the Polish Underground, the Home Army, and former women prisoners from German camps. The inauguration of the school – which consisted of two classes at secondary level in humanities and three grammar school level classes – was preceded by a secondary school-certificate course for the volunteer girls, held in March 1945. In summer 1946, after the school-certificate examination for that year, the school was transferred to Great Britain and continued to function in Foxley, near Hereford. It finally closed in 1948. In the final months of the war, there were 11 schools in Italy attended by over 4,000 young people. Educational provision in Italy did not just encompass young people of school age. In 1946, on the orders of General Anders, a Polish Academic Centre was created. This replaced the earlier Academic Centre for the Soldiers of the 2nd Army Corps, which had its branches in Rome, Bologna, Turin, Milan, and Florence. Thanks to the decisions taken by General Anders, all those who were keen to continue studying were given the possibility of doing so in Italian university colleges, before demobilization. The welfare and supervision of these students was entrusted to Professor, Lieutenant Henryk Paszkowski, assisted by Assistant Professor, Lieutenant Karolina Lanckorońska. In years 1946-47, there were 1,150 such students at five universities. Poles studying in Beirut also benefited from the financial support of the 2nd Polish Army Corps, as did the group of 150 students at the University of Innsbruck.

When the war ended, the situation of Polish education outside Poland underwent a fundamental change. A Polish government in exile was still functioning, and it appreciated the necessity to continue its educational work but did not have sufficient funds to do so. A not an insignificant factor in the equation was that the British authorities had begun to close Polish refugee camps throughout British colonial territories, called ‘Operation Polejump’. Poles, who decided against returning to Poland, were brought over to Great Britain. Thus pupils, and in some instances their schools, were transported to Britain and located in military bases.

Some of the young people were able to continue their education in the schools belonging to the Centre for Technical Schools of the Polish Resettlement Corps, which was formed in Britain after the Polish Armed Forces in the West were disbanded.

Those pupils whose schools closed, but who were staying on in their new countries, were transferred to local schools. Frequently, this was seen as another kind of ‘deportation’, although their new conditions, for example, preparing for their school-certificate examinations in New Zealand schools, could in no way be compared to the reality they had experienced in the Soviet Union. It has already been mentioned that the end of the war greatly reduced the geographical spread of educational activity.

As Polish refugee settlements outside Europe were liquidated, the most important tasks and the possibility of creating a multi-level system of education integrated within the structure of a ‘State-in-Exile’, fell squarely on the shoulders of Polish institutions in Britain, where about 150,000 Poles – political émigrés – had chosen to settle after the end of the Second World War. It was obvious that provision of schooling would be an important element of educational, as well as political activity, outside Poland. Not least important were the educational needs of the youngest generation, illustrated by the number of Poles living in the British Isles. It was considered natural that, on the one hand, schools would provide the opportunity to continue schooling for all those children who had until recently been taught outside Britain, and on the other hand, if treated inclusively (primary, secondary and tertiary levels) they would create a seamless system of émigré education from the lowest to the highest level.

In March 1947, the adoption of the Polish Resettlement Act legislation by the British parliament meant that the British Ministry of Education was obliged to assume responsibility for and finance Polish education. This led to the creation of the Committee for the Education of Poles in Great Britain, which took over the responsibilities of the Department of Education Interim Treasure, a body responsible for the liquidation of Polish ministries and agencies active in Britain during the war. This committee functioned until September 1954 and was chaired by Sir George Gater. Edward Raczyński was a member of the committee. The British considered winding up the Committee as early as the beginning of the 1950’s, even though the obligations stemming from the provisions of the Polish Resettlement Act did not have a fixed time limit. In 1952, the British authorities concluded that it had fulfilled its purpose. The main argument being the dwindling numbers of pupils in the schools under the Committee’s control, coupled to the underlying reasoning that separate Polish schooling should be gradually wound up. At the end of 1952, there were, among other schools, 5 secondary schools, 1 school for orphans, 12 primary schools, and 20 nurseries under its control.

As was the London based, Polish University College, the Glasgow based Agricultural College and the Centre for Correspondence Courses. The Polish side had misgivings about this development, and the matter was raised at the highest levels of émigré political circles, testifying to the importance they attached to the sphere of education. Despite several interventions, among others, by General Anders and by Edward Raczyński, who put forward the suggestion that the Committee should continue its work, to Minister Anthony Eden and Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, the British side refused to change its mind and only agreed to defer the date of liquidation. The powers of the Committee were transferred to the British Ministry for Education.

In its 7-year existence, the Committee assigned over £9 million pounds to education across all levels and thanks to this, it proved possible not only to maintain schools and educate many young Poles, but also to achieve the educational goals that the émigré Polish community set itself at the end of the war. From autumn 1945, apart from the financial means at the disposal of the Committee, those keen to begin or continue their studies could avail themselves of financial support from the Fund organized by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers of Polish Academic Schools in Great Britain. About 800 students received financial support in the first post-war academic year.

Considering the fact that children and young people were legally bound to attend schools in the country they had settled in, the best and generally applied solution was the introduction of the non-compulsory, so-called, Saturday school, where children would be taught mostly Polish language, literature, history and geography. A network of such schools, teaching Polish subjects, was organised throughout Great Britain, by the Union of Poles (an association of social organizations active in Great Britain). In this they were strongly supported by, among others, the Polish Educational Society (‘Polska Macierz Szkolna’) and the Association of Polish Combatants (SPK). In 1950, there were 10 such Saturday schools attended by 250 children, taught by 20 teachers. Ten years later, this had grown to 150 schools (5,000 children), dropping to about 70 schools (3,000 children) at the beginning of the 1980’s. The Saturday school initiative was implemented in most of the larger Polish community groupings, among others, in the United States of America.

Parallel to the efforts of maintaining primary education was the effort of maintaining schooling at secondary level. In Great Britain, the origins of Polish secondary school education go back to the war years. More than 150 girls passed the lower school-certificate and over 170 obtained the school-leaving-certificate, at the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Girls’ Grammar Secondary School until its closure in 1951.

Apart from the schools administered by the Committee for Education, there were also private secondary schools. Two of the most popular were, the Boys’ Grammar School in Fawley Court, established by the Marian Fathers and the cluster of schools run by the Sisters of Nazareth, in Pitsford, near Northampton. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, Fawley Court had about 100 pupils, whose parents mainly but not exclusively, lived in Britain. As time went by, the Grammar School in Fawley Court began to lose its exclusively Polish character, for example, in 1981 only about half of the pupils were of Polish origin.

As already mentioned, after the war there were several Polish establishments of higher education at various British universities. In summer 1946, these had almost 800 students. The popularity these establishments had enjoyed during and soon after the war began to wane as time went by. Those Poles who had a better grasp of English, would more frequently choose to study at a British college and this was one of the main reasons why most of the Polish departments closed.

The lessening of interest in Polish higher schooling was not just caused by the conviction that job prospects would be enhanced by study at British colleges, but also by the previously accepted assumption of the provisional nature of Polish departments. Their closure should not be seen as proof of British discrimination. It stemmed from the conviction that Polish higher schooling in Great Britain was there to assist people whose studies had been interrupted by the war, or to assist those who wanted to get into British higher education establishments.

To prevent the liquidation of Polish higher education in Great Britain, it was decided to create an establishment of higher education that would be financially independent of the British. It was conceived of as an important and prestigious part of the Polish State in Exile. At the end of 1949, work was started to set up a Polish University Abroad (PUNO). At the same time – in London again – the School of Political and Social Sciences (SNPS) opened its doors. Its basic course consisted of the history of Poland, general history, socio-political ideas and contemporary international and social problems.

Both institutions were intended to fulfil different functions than other post-war Polish higher educational establishments abroad. They were aimed at young Polish émigré students who were interested in pursuing a broadly based Polish studies course and could not find the appropriate subject in British colleges. They were not there to prepare students for further study at British higher education establishments. These institutions were intended for those people who had completed Polish secondary school education and were established to provide the last, the tertiary stage of Polish education abroad. Both schools, PUNO and SNPS offered humanities-based curricula and although they did not concentrate exclusively on Polish subject matter, this was the area they both specialized in.

At its inauguration, PUNO only had one faculty, that of the Humanities. Later, the following faculty boards were established: Law and Political Science, Economics, Natural Sciences-Mathematics, and finally, Technical Sciences. Initially, PUNO had 37 independent teaching staff (pre-war professors and lecturers), of whom 26 were resident in Great Britain. The faculty of Humanities had the lion’s share of these, namely, 20 professors and 7 lecturers.

The idea of establishing these two educational bodies was not devoid of political intent. They were to be, obviously only to a certain extent, an alternative to universities in Poland. They were to specialize in subject matter that was not available in foreign universities – and thus would be seen as an important element of ‘maintaining a feeling of national identity among the émigrés in Great Britain and throughout the world’ – as well as to promote the development of individual professional careers. PUNO’s first rector, Professor Tadeusz Brzeski – rector of Warsaw University before the war – stressed this in his inaugural speech, as being the most important tasks the school faced. Based on a decree by the President of the Republic of Poland in Exile, PUNO was granted full status of a state academic institution, as provided for by the 1933 Act. Master’s diplomas awarded by PUNO, were useful in securing employment in the British educational system and were recognized by other countries. Despite the difficult beginnings, owing to harsh financial and social conditions, both institutions managed to secure their positions at the end of the 1950’s and beginning of the 1960’s. They gained the sought after recognition and, in response to the needs of their students began publishing activity. To 1989, 110 doctoral theses had been successfully defended and 26 assistant professorship examination procedures held.

Both schools, like other emigre institutions, were not immune to the passage of time. The effect of this began to manifest itself especially in the composition of its teaching staff. Academic calibre defines the standing of any school and in the 1950’s, PUNO’s Faculty of Humanities boasted an excellent teaching staff, but in the 1960’s and 1970’s, most of the staff that had pre-war professorships had passed away.

As time went on, both schools began to feel the impact of falling interest and this led to the closure of SNSP in the early 1970’s. PUNO was in a better position, because it had decided to broaden its basic curriculum (for example, it set up Seminar Lectures on Polish Cpublicy of Polish Culture, both of which were open to the general public). The University enjoyed a renaissance of interest at the beginning of the 1980’s, owing to a new wave of Polish immigrants who decided to remain in the West after the introduction of martial law in Poland in 1981, as the number of students rose from 100 in 1980 to 200 in 1983.

Polish education outside Poland, especially during the war or in its immediate aftermath, did not have pure education as its only goal. In the case of orphaned children, completely alone, whose parents had perished in the ‘inhuman land’, the school became their home, a surrogate family. For all children, it was an institution that brought them back into the fold of the Polish community, helped them overcome the nightmare of their wartime experiences and gave them a chance for a normal life, which might seem paradoxical, given the ‘abnormal’ conditions the schools had to function in.

As for the peculiar nature of this schooling, it may be worth while to recall the conditions it functioned in. In the Soviet Union, lessons were often conducted in ditches dug into the earth to give some protection from the wind, or hurriedly adapted barracks. Blackboards, chalk, desks, inkwells, ink and books had a solely symbolic function, as they were impossible to obtain. Thus, botany had to be taught without any exercise books, straight from nature, and geography, without maps. Seating was on anything that happened to be available and the only teaching aids were the pupil’s sheer determination to learn and the teachers to teach. Things were better in Africa and the Near East, lessons would be held in tents and in normal school premises. At times the changes could be astounding, for example, in Italy, where the Grammar Secondary School was allocated a palace situated by the Adriatic that had once belonged to Jerome Bonaparte.

To the exotic locations of places and teaching conditions in the schools (‘School under the Baobab tree’) must be added the periods of transit and the uneven levels of competence of the teachers.

Along with the teachers who had qualified before the war – including directors of primary and secondary schools – there were also those who found themselves in that position through a twist of fate, or rather necessity, and whose preparation for the task was very basic indeed.

If one adds to this situation, an education curriculum often far removed from pre-war educational program, concentrating on those elements that it was possible to teach and not the ones that should have been, and given the problem of books and the needs of local conditions (for example, the necessity of having to teach basic Persian), the picture of Polish schooling during wartime is almost complete.

Complete but for one thing. One must remember that the school was not there to simply provide an education, but also to prepare all persons for life in exile, especially those who would have to start work after finishing school. This is the reason for the relatively large number of vocational schools of various kinds and levels and the accusations that émigré schooling during the war, despite all its efforts, did not do enough to vocationally prepare its pupils for life. School-certificate examination questions discussing the heroism of the main characters of The Trilogy, or an analysis of the ethical position of Dr.Judym, or what it was exactly that Wokulski tried to tell Rzecki, took on an unintended exoticism in already exotic conditions through their detachment from the surrounding reality. It begs the question whether a school having such characteristics could meet the challenges of reality and adequately prepare its pupils for their confrontation with the outside world – a world not only more immediate than the worlds of Judym, Wołodyjowski, or Rzecki, but totally unknown.

In expressing such doubts, one more quite important thing must be remembered. Namely, the far wider role played by primary and secondary schools. These literally itinerant schools, moving from place to place, were the repositories of lasting values. This was of special importance for orphaned children without family support. The absence of normal social structures placed the burden of teaching and preserving such values squarely on the schools. The celebration of religious holy days or national day anniversaries that formed part of the school calendar, gave the school ‘in exile’ a dimension where homage could be rendered to all things Polish. In such a school, there had to be a place for Konrad Wallenrod, Pan Tadeusz, and the conspirators of the November Uprising.

One often hears the view that the vast difference between Polish schooling during the war years (‘a school unlike any other’) and pre-war normal schooling, could perhaps be the reason why former pupils held their school in such great affection, an affection much more intense than the fondness one tends to develop with the passing years for one’s own ‘normal’ school. The proof of this intense attachment is the lasting ties that were formed during those war years, between pupils, teachers and pupils, ties that survived the test of time and distance.

Fate threw these young people together into the same school classes and fate dictated that they must part and journey to various corners of the world, the result of decisions others often made for them without asking them. Some of them returned to Poland and some – with or without parents – sought to make a new life in Europe, the United States, or in the antipodes.

Time passed, places and surroundings changed, but the good memories of their school endured.