Before the war. Zygmunt Lubiscz-Zaleski in Paris, sixth from left, surrounded by teachers including Wacław Godlewski, on his right. (Polish Historical and Literary Society. Polish Library).

Home
Le foyer des libertés
Origins
The fight continues

The fight continues

Chapters

1. Before
2. Origins
3. The participants
4. Daily life
5. ”A school unlike any other”
6. Fighting
7. Twilight
8. The aftermath
9. Today

For the Polish government in exile, the priority was to continue the fight, and to look after the thousands of Polish refugees in France, including education for the youngest. Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski was tasked with setting up a Polish high school in the free zone. Wacław Godlewski was to assist him.

Summer 1940 - For the Polish government, now in exile in London, the priority was to continue the fight, and to look after the thousands of Polish refugees in France, especially the younger ones: they are the future of Poland. They needed to set up a Polish high school in the free zone.

Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski was the delegate for Religious Affairs and Education, overseeing Polish scholarship students and their integration into French high schools. He had supervised the first Polish high school, Cyprian Norwid, and so was asked to take charge of the project. Among others, he was helped by Adam Rose, President of the Polish Red Cross and former Polish Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade, and the Polish Consul General in Lille, Aleksander Kawałkowski.

Lubicz-Zaleski contacted a long-time friend, Wacław Godlewski, a Polish lecturer at the University of Lille and supervisor of all the Polish lectureships in France, who was currently taking refuge in the Gard region with the family of his friend Marcel Malbos: “I’ve been asked to found a new school, but I won’t do it without you”. Godlewski accepted: “Given the circumstances, we have to try.”

2.4.1 “I was required to organise a school.”

September 1940. Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski goes to Robiac (Gard) to visit Marcel Malbos's uncle, a priest. Wacław Godlewski was a refugee there. He persuaded him to help him set up the high school (Association Mémoire du lycée polonais - Polish High School Memorial Association).

—Zygmunt Lubicz-Zaleski, Headmaster. Memoirs 1939-1945. From Grotowice to Buchenwald, 2002, based on Pamietnik 1939-1945. Od Grotowic do Buchenwaldu, 1998.

In early September 1940, I received several telegrams at the same time. I was summoned to Toulouse to work… Until then, I had been dealing with the situation of our scholarship students scattered across France by correspondence… Now I was required to organise a Polish junior high school and high school for the Polish youth who had fled Poland – and also to deal with other educational matters. Naturally, I accepted.

I began recruiting the staff. The first person I hired, still in Toulouse, was Mrs Jadwiga Aleksandrowicz. A courageous woman, perfectly qualified professionally. A good choice. Then, after a series of steps in Toulouse, I went to see Wacław Godlewski, who was staying with the uncle of his friend Marcel Malbos, the parish priest Father Bertrand. There, I met other survivors of the defeat (Lequeux). A day and a half of rest in a wonderfully peaceful spot. Despite war raging all over the world, this (French) village was a haven of peace. Godlewski naturally accepted my proposal and a few weeks later threw himself wholeheartedly into the task.

2.3The phoney war and the fall of France

The choice of Villard-de-Lans2.5