Five Hundred Polish Children at School in Britain

From a C.H. Reporter
In schools of their own and dispersed through the State and secondary schools of Scotland and England nearly five hundred Polish boys and girls are learning not only the ordinary things schoolchildren all over the world learn but also their own language, their own native songs, all but the Polish constitution and last, but
not least, how to wear their own native costumes. In this way they are more fortunate than many of their relatives left in Poland, for in all occupied countries the Nazis are carrying on de-nationalisation of subjected peoples on an enormous scale.
Polish chaplains are looking after these children's religion and visit the schools at regular intervals to examine the pupils in the principles of Catholic doctrine.
From an office in Grosvenor Square, Captain Sulimirski, of the Board of Education, directs the general organisation of these schools—which are mostly in Scotland and-up in Perth Dr. Lenczowski directs the educational side of the work.
120 BOYS The biggest school is Dunalastair, where 120 boys and young soldiers are having completed the education that Hitler's invading, army interrupted, back in 1939. They take their Polish " matriculation " before they leave.
The youngest of the boys are only about fifteen. " How did such young children get over here?" I asked Captain Sulimirski.
" Some of them came over here without their parents—joining our soldiers as they marched out of Poland. Some were young drummer boys and one boy was a newspaper seller in the streets of Warsaw. He has turned out to be one of our very brightest students and is finishing at an excellent secondary school in Scotland.'
FIVE MONTHS' LEAVE FOR EXAMS The very young soldiers get five months' leave from the army in order that they may attend the schools and take their matriculation.
All these young people could tell stirring stories of their escapes through Rumania, Bulgaria, Italy, France, Yugoslavia and Greece. Two foreign languages are compulsory sections of the curriculum and these are generally English and either French or German according to what the student was learning before he left home. Classical students must also study Latin.
Captain Sulimirski showed etc time-tables, schedules and records of the work as I sat in the office of the Polish Board of Education—now occupying its third home. It was bombed out of the other two.
Madame Malkowska, who founded the Girl Guide movement in Poland, while carrying on one of the girls' schools, is actually like a mother to all the Polish children and keeps in touch with them all. She came into the Board of Education office while was there and told me she is carrying on her own special school on the same lines as the one she left behind in Poland. " The Nazis," she said, " paid me the honour of sending three tanks to demolish the place."