Figure 1.--This school portrait was taken during the 1930s in Księżomierz, a small rural village now in southeastern Poland. At the time it was south central Poland. It is near Lublin. We are not sire about the ethnic makeup, but there may have been a Ukranian minority. We are not sure, however, to what extent Poles and Ukranioans lived tiogether in the same villages. Hopefully Polish readers can explain about demographic trends. The children seem to be in front of a haystack rather than their school, perhaps they were on an outing. The children seem to be wearing a uniform, but it is not real clear. Put your cursor on the image to see the rest of the school.

World War I fundamentally changed the political situation in Eastern Europe, and Poland was at the heart of those changes. The Germans drove east, taking Poland, the Baltics, what is now Belarus, and large areas of the Ukraine. These gains were formalized in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) and German dominance in Central and Eastern Europe. German defeat in the West, however, meant that Germany had to abrogate the Treaty and led to the division of the great European empires and national self-determination for the former subject people of those empires. The Treaty of Versailles recognized an independent Poland. War with the Bolsheviks (1919-21) moved the boundary of Poland signifiantly to the east into areas with non-Polish populations (Lithuanians, Bylorussians, Ukranians, and Jews). Under Russian and German control, there was no Polish language instruction. (The Austrians were more open to national minoriries.) We have little information on the Polish school system established in independernt Poland. As the Polish Partitions (18th century) tookplace before a public school system had been established, this was the first Polish national school system. The new independent Polish Republic had the task of combining the existing Austria, Prussian, and Russian schools into a unified national education system. The task was magnified by the fact that the population in the east consisted of a large non-Polish population. We are not sure how the Poles dealt with the language issue in schools. The 1930s Depression sharply reduced school attendance as well as Government funds available for education. There was some achievements. State universities were established in Warsaw, Wilno (Vilnius), and Poznan. Attendance was largely limited to the upper classes and affluent middle class. The Government also opened a number of specialized secondary schools. The Polish Academy of Learning was founded. We have little information on school uniforms or boys clothes during this period, but believe that younger boys wore smocks and many boys wore short pants. We are not aware of any national regulations on school uniform. We do see religion as important part od school activities. We note a school Christmas celebration. we think in the 1930s. The children are all dressed up in folk outfits with Christmas touches.

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Created: 8:30 PM 6/10/20111
Last updated: 7:49 PM 6/20/2016