1.7.1 “The steps taken soon bore fruit.”
—Tadeusz Łepkowski, student. A free Polish school in occupied France (2012), based on Wolna szkoła polska w okupowanej francji (1990).
In 1924, Polish teachers began to take steps to open a high school in France to cater for new immigrants. They were mainly part of the labour immigration and already numbered in the hundreds of thousands in December 1924.
The Union of Polish Teachers in France, founded on 15 April 1925, unequivocally expressed this goal: “Given that there are some deserving children among our 500,000 immigrants, the Union of Polish Teachers in France believes it is necessary to establish a high school.” On behalf of the Union ‘s Executive Committee, its President Więcek sent a letter from La Madeleine (in the Nord department) to the Polish consulates in France on 2 May 1929, informing them that the Polish teachers had adopted such a resolution at their 1928 congress. “We have issued stamps to facilitate fund raising among immigrants…
We hope that all Poles, without exception, regardless of their social convictions, will take part in this action.”
The initiative was ultimately unsuccessful, but was not without effect. The Pallotine congregation (Societas Apostolatus Catholici), which was well-established among Polish workers and employees, took up the baton, with an efficiency that reached its peak in 1937 when they were entrusted with the leadership of the Polish Catholic Mission in France – in the person of a young priest bursting with energy and imagination, Father Franciszek Cegiełka. The steps taken soon bore fruit. The school was due to open in Amiens in 1939. Sixty pupils had been admitted, but the outbreak of war between Poland and Germany prevented its inauguration, and the building was completely destroyed by bombing the following year.