Between 9 and 15 October 1940, the Cyprian Norwid Polish High School emerged in Villard-de-Lans in the midst of uncertainty and disarray after unparalleled catastrophes: the collapse of Poland in September 1939 accompanied by floods of refugees, especially young people and former soldiers, but also entire families; the French defeat in 1940; the evacuation of Paris; the mass exodus of the population after the armistice, which seemed to confirm the irreparable and exclude fighting on the battlefields, at a time when, in a dismembered and fully occupied Poland, executions and deportations were multiplying at an alarming rate and the crematoria of the concentration camps were being lit.
The high school was greeted by the residents with kindness and understanding. It was welcomed, not forced upon them, a distinction that is essential in order to understand what followed.
This high school, whose numbers were growing by the day, if not by the hour, was intended to be a refuge for young exiled soldiers with no immediate future, a sort of home where they could feel safe, as well as a school where, while waiting for hostilities to resume, they could study under good conditions and prepare for their high school diploma, which would be recognised by the French government as equivalent to the French baccalaureate, giving access to all higher education establishments.
But the Norwid high school did even more. Within the limits of its human possibilities, it wanted to be a response to the historical events that were unfolding in the world, both militarily and culturally. Stretched to the extreme in an act of faith and hope, often belied by events, but never giving in to despair, which would have been considered cowardly. Without this reference to the history that was unfolding before our eyes and in which we were participating, body and soul, it is impossible to understand the high school’s special character and spirit.
It was a school of moral, intellectual and spiritual resistance, patriotic and highly humanist. A school for military resistance: to be ready to take up arms again as soon as circumstances allowed, or even earlier for the impatient and for those who were threatened because of their activity in the maquis resistance: they left clandestinely for Spain to join the ranks of the Polish army in England.
Under no circumstances were students to feel demobilised. Despite being dressed in civilian clothes, all of them, in their conscience – directors, teachers, administrative staff, kitchen and farm workers, students – were fighters by vocation and free choice. Hence the semi-military discipline that struck those watching us from the outside; hence the administration ‘s concern to ensure that the students were in good physical and sporting shape, the driving force behind which was Mr Budrewicz who, from the very first weeks, established contact with French sports clubs, organised competitions and forged lasting friendships with them.
These distinctive features whose importance I have emphasized gave the high school its internal structure and its historic character as a school unlike any other.
