Poland's universities under occupation

The existence of academics under repressive regimes, the subject of my previous blog postings, most often involved dismissal or collaboration with the authorities, as in Vichy France, Fascist Italy, and the USA under McCarthyism. But sometimes a more uplifting picture emerges, as in the case of Polish universities under Nazi occupation between 1939-1945. Despite the murderous persecution academics had to endure at this time, when all higher education in Poland was forbidden, they secretly kept university life going until the Liberation. I recently read Adam Redzik's graphic account of this time. Though terrifying in its depiction of what staff and students had to endure, it ultimately conveys an inspiring message of hope that no regime, however blindly barbaric, can trample into the dirt the educational aspirations of young people and those who wish to lead them to self-realisation through higher learning.

After Poland's defeat in 1939, the Nazi occupying regime, which sought to eliminate the country's intellectual elite, made it a heavily punishable offence to be involved in higher education. Only vocational training was allowed. Anyone defying the authorities was sent to a concentration camp or shot out of hand. No fewer than 450 professorial academics lost their lives in this way, as well as several hundred junior staff. Despite this appalling loss of life amongst the academic community, others took their places, enabling higher education in Poland to survive.  

After the enforced closure of university establishments in the autumn of 1939, the administration of courses tended to be carried out by academics themselves and their close personal circles. All university activities had to be conducted in complete secrecy from the occupying forces. In the humanities, lectures were given in professors' homes or workplaces. History lectures took place in the crypt of monasteries. Law faculty teaching took place in a professor’s home or office. Medicine and biology continued to be taught despite the difficulty of finding laboratory facilities. Students in humanities and social sciences formed about 49% of the total wartime enrolment; medicine accounted for around 33%, and mathematics and natural sciences 18%.

Unsurprisingly under the prevailing conditions, overall student numbers  were greatly reduced. 6,300 students were enrolled in the secret HE institutions, only 13% of the prewar (1938) enrolment. The university buildings were often severely damaged, especially in Warsaw, which saw massive destruction in 1939 and again in 1944. 

Nevertheless, the achievements of the secret universities were well demonstrated when Poland was liberated during the academic year 1944-5. At the end of that year, 1,850 MAs and 211 higher degrees were awarded to students, many of whom had begun their studies after the war started. During the occupation itself, no fewer than 28 PhDs and 17 Habilations were awarded by universities in Warsaw, Cracow and Lvov.

I have no direct contacts with Poland or Polish universities, but my estimate of the quality of Polish scholarship in my subject has generally been very high, which I found all the more remarkable when I discovered just how much their university system had to endure 70 years ago.

For me, the story of Poland's underground universities serves to illustrate what the human spirit can achieve, even under the most horrific conditions, when committed to keeping alight the torch of free enquiry and the furtherance of knowledge, against the evil of a hateful political ideology bent on the destruction of an entire academic community, and thereby the life of the mind in an entire country. 

Source: Adam Redzik (Polish Ukrainian university in Lublin)
Polish universities during the Second World War (http://www.gomezurdanez.com/polonia/adamredzikpolishuniversitas.pdf)