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Une école libre polonaise en France occupée (A Free Polish School in Occupied France)
"In August 1978, an Editorial Committee for the history of the Cyprian Norwid high school in Villard-de-Lans was established in Warsaw. Tadeusz Łepkowski, a pupil at the high school from 1943 to 1945, took on the chairmanship, was chosen as editor, and began to gather information an
Une école libre polonaise en France occupée (A Free Polish School in Occupied France)
Publications • 2013
The project took more than ten years to come to fruition. A questionnaire was circulated, to which around forty alumni responded. Łepkowski was determined to return to Villard and Grenoble, to meet alumni and others who had been involved, and to consult the archives. Organising this trip proved to be very challenging, but he finally made it in October 1988. He talked to one of his former teachers at the high school in Villard, his "Dear Mr Malbos", about the difficulties of the journey and the more general difficulties he was encountering in completing the book. He knew that he did not have the approval of some of his former colleagues, who could not digest the fact that he was once part of the communist nomenklatura. He refused to give in to those who wanted him to write a hagiography. "Believe me, I'm doing everything I can to finish the history of the school. Non-historian colleagues - understandably - want to have the text as quickly as possible (a kind of memoir written with tears in their eyes: everything was wonderful, etc.). But I cannot write that way. It must be a scientific work, a work written not to weep for posterity, but to tell the truth, which is almost always complex.”
All that remained was to find the funds to publish the book. The alumni contributed, as did the Polonia association. Łepkowski returned to France in July 1989, to Paris, invited to celebrate the bicentenary of the French Revolution. The history of the school was almost complete. The text was sent to the printer in September. Poland was undergoing extraordinary changes. Łepkowski was overworked and also chaired the Solidarność Commission of the Academy of Sciences. He died suddenly on 16 December 1989. His book was published a few weeks later.
About this edition
As soon as Tadeusz Łepkowski's book appeared in Poland, the issue of translating it into French was raised and publishing what most of the alumni considered to be the most comprehensive text on the history of their school, their "bible". It was a huge project that would require both human and financial resources. This dream did not become a reality until 2007, when a new team at the head of the alumni association found the energy and funds to move forward. However, that was just the beginning: it took five years for the work to be completed. Thanks are due to the translator, Nicolas Véron, who managed to make the sometimes rather heavy Polish more fluid in French!
The team sent the French manuscript to around ten former students and asked for their comments. A few marginal errors were reported and corrected. There were some bitter comments, reproaching Tadeusz Łepkowski for his partiality: even today, tensions remain between those who returned home and "compromised" with the leaders of "popular" Poland, and those who chose to prioritize their political and patriotic convictions. There were also complimentary comments: Łepkowski’s book remains the reference work on the Polish high school, the only one written by a historian.
The two main criticisms levelled at Tadeusz Łepkowski's book are that it fails to mention two facts, or mentions them only very marginally: the passage to Great Britain of almost one hundred pupils and teachers to join the Polish army; and the decision by around thirty pupils not to attend the high school in Paris once it had closed its doors in Villard, but to take their baccalaureate at La Courtine, in Larzac. These two subjects are treated at the end of the book under the headings Les départs vers Londres (Departures for London) and Ceux qui ont dit non à Wrona (Those who said no to Wrona).
Published by the association - 370 pages, numerous footnotes - On sale at the Maison du Patrimoine in Villard-de-Lans and from our association - €19 plus postage.