London, le 18 February 2024
- Opening of the exhibition
- Heart of Freedoms - Dom Wolności
Speech by Stéphane Malbos, representing our association.
We are very happy to be here. This is the first time that an event concerning the Cyprian Norwid High School in Villard-de-Lans has taken place in the United Kingdom, and it is high time that it did, as this country played an important role in the story of our school.
While the school was a centre of moral and cultural resistance, more than ninety pupils and teachers attempted to reach the UK from France via Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and North Africa, in order to join the Polish Army. Most succeeded. They helped to liberate France and Europe, nine of them dying in battle ""for their freedom and ours"". After the war, many stayed and settled in the UK.
Their sons and daughters are here with us today: Jan, Penelope, Paul, Eddie, Richard, Joanna, Jack, Tricia, Janina… The daughters and sons of students and teachers who stayed in France are also with us: Anne-Marie, Denis and me, Stéphane. Finally, Romain, the son of Zygmunt Zaleski, the founder and first headmaster of the school, and Hélène, Romain’s daughter and Zygmunt’s granddaughter, have honoured us with their presence.
Thank you for coming from central London, but also from as far away as Australia!
I won't tell you the story of the Polish high school: that's for you to discover on these walls… But I will tell you the story of our presence here today. It begins almost half a century ago, when former students and teachers founded our association in 1974 and met for the first time in Villard-de-Lans in 1976. The tradition of this annual meeting has been faithfully maintained in subsequent years. The first meeting brought together eighty ""Villardians"", as they called themselves. Then, as they grew older, their numbers dwindled and they were replaced by their children and friends. In 2022, only three former students were present, and last year, for the first time, none were able to attend. Despite this, last September, around thirty of us continued the tradition with a joyful reunion of families and friends.
For many years, our main objective has been to work on the collective remembrance of this unlikely but significant event, in order to fulfil our duty of passing on its history, legacy and values. We started by gathering all the documents and photographs we could find. We identified them as best we could. Today, these documents fill 20 boxes and more than 1,500 photos have been digitised. We have published a website in French, Polish and English. We have written and translated five books. We produced a twenty-minute documentary that you can see here and contributed to the film Out of the Limelight that will be shown in a few moments. Over the last fifteen years, we have created seven exhibitions. This is our eighth.
None of this would have been possible without the support of the Zaleski Foundation. I cannot emphasise enough how reassuring it is for a voluntary organisation like ours to know that we can work on small and large projects, in the short and long term, and that if we plan coherently, and what we produce is of high quality, the Zaleski Foundation will be by our side. So a big thank you to you, Romain, Hélène, and the Foundation's distinguished representatives!