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The Peterwitzer School was a school in Silesia, probably the German Volksschule. Peterwitz was the name of the village rather than a name of a notable individual. A reader has provided some images from the 1920s-40s. Another reader has provided details on the village. At the time Silesia was part of Germany. After World War II it was transferred to Poland and the Germans expelled. Some of the ohotographs seem to have been taken during school trips. Unfortunately we have no further details on the school. It was a coed school. We are guessing because the school was not large enough for two schools. Most of the boys wear short pants. We notice that suspender shorts or shorts with suapenders are very popular. Most of the children seem to come to school barefoot, at least in the 1920s and early 30s. Many girls wear pinafores.
TThe Peterwitzer School was a school in Silesia, probably the German Volksschule. Peterwitz was the name of the village rather than a name of a notable individual. Unfortunately we have no further details on the school. It was a coed school. We are guessing because the village was not large enough for two schools. The school itself seems like a fairly substantial school.
A reader has provided some images from the 1920s-40s. The children during this period were dressed similarly. The boys in 1925 wear short pants. We note one boy wearing fancy H0bar traps, but most wear suspenders. Many of the girls wear pinafores. The boys seem to have come to school mostly in shirts. A few boys wear jackets. The boys mostly wear short pants. We note that in 1930 most of them wear suspenders or suspender shorts. We do not, however, see many H-bar shorts. Several girls wear pinafores. Most od the children appear to be barefoot. There were changes by 1945. We see quite a number of boys wearing H-bar shorts by 1945. Also more children were wearing shoes.
Silesia is an area of central Europe drained by the Oder River (the current border between Germany and Poland). The historic of Silesia is complicated. In modern history, Silesia was acquired by the Austrian crown (1675). Frededrick the Great of Prussia claimed Silesia from Austrian Emperess Maria Teressa (1740). The Silesian Wars which resulted (1740-42 and 1744-45) were part of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48). All od Silesia except the southern Czech area and Teschen were ceeded to Prussia. This meant that large numbers of Poles in northern Silesia were brought into Prussia. Prussian Silesia was a largely agrarian area. (Notice the boys here are barefoot. Boys in city schools would have probably had shoes.) Under the terms of the Versailles Treaty followung World War I, a plebecite was held in northern Silesia and the largely Polish population voted to join Poland. Polish Silesia was seized by Germany (1939) and reincorporated into the Reich. The NAZIs then began expelling Poles. After World War II, Silesia was assigned to Poland at the Potsdam Conference (1945). The Poles proceeded to expell Germans. That means that most of the children seen here became refugeees and were expelled after the War.
This may be a villiage in Silesia, but I am not sure. Hopefully our German readers will know where the village was. It looks to us like it was probably a good-sized village in a rural area. The children here look like they were primarily German rather than Polish, but it is not always easy to tell. A reader tells us, "The correct name of this village is Groß Peterwitz, usually referred to as simply: PETERWITZ. It is a very old settlement. In the Middle Ages the area belonged to the kings of Bohemia, In the 12th century Germans came to settle and had been living there since. It still has a German minority until the present. There were 3,500 bi-lingual inhabitants in 1938. Of interest, especially to HBC is the fact that Peterwitz was a center of the clothing industry in southwestern Poland. There were many small factories that supplied materials and designs, often done by men and women at home, for the ladies AND mens fashion trade in Poland, Germany and Czechoslovakia. There even was a fashion school that graduated 50 "master tailors". The village was self-supporting. The soil there is excellent and the farmers were not poor. In the village itself there were several bakeries and butcher shops. In 1938 they had one pharmacist, two medical doctors, and two dentists. The river Zinna nearby was the linguistic border. To the west the population was German-speaking, to the east of the river Polish .. and some German. Many of the Germans fled when the Russians approached in 1944/45, many stayed (switching their language to Polish). However, amazing is that the Poles did not expell the entire polulation. Only 15 percent of the present inhabitants are Poles from other parts of Poland. The official name now is: PIETROWICE WIELKIE. There now are 2,000 people livingt in the village. German servives are being held in one of the churches. The village administration is housed in the old German Volksschule (Schloß)"
We are not sure just how Prussia and the subsequent German Empire and Weimar Republic handeled education. There were large numbers of Poles in the east, especially East Prussia and Silesia. Only after World war I were the Polish areas of Silesia transferred to Poland. We believe that schools in Prussia and the German Empire were taught in German. This was a part of the procdss of Germanizing the population. In some countries, village schools might be in different languages. I don't think, however, that schools in Prussia or the Germany Empire were conducted in Polish, even in Polish villages. I think Poland (1919-39) did allow Germans to have German-language schools, but again I am not positive about this. I could be wrong about this. Hopefully HBC readers will provide us some background. The image here was taken in 1930 (figure 1). That would mean that it was taken during the Weimar era.
Some of the photographs seem to have been taken during school trips.
Most of the boys came to school in shirts. Some boys wear jackets and sweaters, but most came to school in short sleeves. Of course this is seasonal. The available images look to have all been taken in warm weather. Ties were very rare. Most of the boys wear short pants. We notice that suspender shorts or shorts with suapenders are very popular. Most of the children seem to come to school barefoot, at least in the 1920s and early 30s. One factor here was probably that it was a rural village. A French reader writes, "Fascinating image of this school with barefoot children! We can't imagined that here in France even though Germany is close to the France." Many girls wear pinafores. They tend to be simple pinafores, but we note both white and colored pinafores, several with stripes.
We note many boys with close cropped hair in the 1920s, but thisd was much less common by 1930. We alsi notice many girls with pigtails.
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