Pictured: The University of Warsaw in ruins.

Quoting Dorothy R. Douglas’s Transitional Economic Systems: The Polish–Czech Example, page 26:

From the first days of the Occcupation a serious effort was made to stamp out Polish national culture, and indeed culture of any kind for Poles. But the programme was not at first announced in so many words. The University of Cracow, Poland's oldest and very conservative centre of learning, assumed it had the right to open in the autumn of 1939; but it was promptly closed and its faculty sent for some months to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where a number of them died.

No university was allowed to function during the Occupation. All general secondary schools were closed. Only low‐grade primary and vocational schools were permitted, and the majority of these were said to ‘vegetate’, with inadequate programme and staffing. In some localities even primary schools were closed for long periods of time. History, geography, and other 'humanistic' subjects were forbidden.

Poles, it turned out, were to be confined to strictly manual labour, and for this the three R’s and some manual training should suffice. In the words of Hans Franck, the Governor‐General, ‘The Poles should be given only such possibilities of education as will prove the hopelessness of their national existence. […] No Pole can occupy a higher post than that of foreman, no Pole will be allowed to receive a higher education in State schools.’¹

Later, when war shortages made some skilled Polish personnel necessary, certain technical schools were allowed to open, and under cover of these, secret higher instruction, some of it of university level, was given by courageous teachers. Small groups of university and high school students also met in professors’ homes, and very large numbers of younger children attended secret primary classes in Polish language and history, The writer subsequently conversed with some of these professors and teachers.

The general effect of the Occupation upon the educational level of the country was nevertheless appalling, and at its end there was a six years’ arrears not only of pupils but of teacher‐training and of young professionals of all kinds.

Existing professionals, artists, and scientists, in proportion to their eminence, were singled out for maltreatment. They perished in larger numbers than the rest of the population. Some 700 university professors and research workers, 1,000 high school and technical school teachers and about 4,000 elementary school teachers perished during the Occupation.

\ Lastly, I would like to confirm that neocolonialism’s destruction of Al‐Israa University inspired me to share this history with you.