Cradle of Freedom

Over centuries, a special relationship developed between France and Poland. France, the land of human rights, became a favoured destination for Polish political refugees in the 19th century. The Polish National School in Paris was founded. In the 1920s, France welcomed almost half a million immigrants, mainly miners and farm workers. However, the school in Paris eventually closed. How could it be re-established, and where?

Poland was invaded, followed by France. A new Polish high school was to be set up in Amiens, but ended up opening in Paris for a short year. The Poles did not accept defeat: they had to continue the fight and provide for refugees arriving in France. Many of the younger ones, and not-so-young ones, needed to continue their studies. A new high school was established in Villard-de-Lans. It was managed by the Polish Red Cross.

From France and Poland, some eight hundred students, teachers and staff passed through the school. The teachers were generally young and proved to be of a high standard. The first students were mainly demobilised soldiers, prison camps escapees and war refugees. The numbers were supplemented by a few children from the pre-war emigration, from the region and mining areas throughout France.

The school programmes were based on those of Polish schools, but adapted to the French reality; at the end of the curriculum, the “Matura”, recognised as the equivalent of the Baccalaureate, enabled access to university and army officer training schools. To improve the daily fare, a twelve-hectare farm was rented and the students participated in the work in the fields. Cultural activity was intense. The school contributes to the preservation of Polish culture, which it shared and disseminated.

The high school was a place of moral, intellectual, spiritual, patriotic and humanist renewal. It was also a school with a special character. The strict rules that governed daily life were the expression of a discipline that was essential to the desire to embody the homeland. There was a certain amount of mistrust between the French and Polish communities, but they all shared the same difficult living conditions. Over time, the mistrust gives way to curiosity, then to sympathy and respect.

From autumn 1940 onwards, young people and adults, boys and girls alike, took part in “resistance” actions, even before the term existed. They took part in the Polish (POWN) and French movements, and organised journeys to Great Britain via the Pyrenees to join the Polish Army. In the stormy years of 1943 and 1944, in the Vercors, Normandy and elsewhere, deportations and fighting claimed many victims.

In liberated France, the high school returned to a certain normality, but the joy of liberation was disrupted by the formation of a USSR-controlled government in Poland. In June 1946, the high school, which had come under the control of the new government, closed its doors in an oppressive atmosphere. The students and teachers dispersed. Should they return to their country and serve it, under Communist rule, or start a new life elsewhere?

In Poland, France, Great Britain, Australia, the United States and elsewhere, each person chose their own path, forever marked by a shared history and shared values. Since 1976, they have met every year in Villard to remember and preserve the memory of those exceptional years. Amongst themselves, they will always be Villardians.

The commemorative plaque unveiled in 1976 on the wall of the Hôtel du Parc et du Château was the first in a long series of initiatives to preserve the memory of the Cyprian Norwid Polish High School as a cradle of freedom. This memory is now recorded in the urban landscape as well as in books and films. Exhibitions and conferences offer a vision and voice to honour these Villardians who fought for their freedom and for ours.