“A group of unfortunate young people”: The Polish Folk School for Survivors of Nazi Persecution in Sweden, 1945-1946

Description

Of the roughly 30,000 Jewish and non-Jewish survivors of Nazi persecution who came to Sweden as refugees in the spring and summer of 1945, around 13,000 were Poles – second only in number to liberated Nordic prisoners. Many were still children, and others had been children when the Nazi occupation of Poland began in 1939. Their formal education had been disrupted and even ceased altogether during the occupation and in ghettos, concentration, and labor camps. While tending to the physical health of these young refugees in Sweden was the first priority, enabling them to continue their education came a close second. This paper examines the Polish folk school at the refugee camp for Polish survivors in Öreryd, Sweden, through both government records and survivor accounts. Established in the fall of 1945 with the cooperation of both Polish and Swedish authorities, the school provided tuition following Polish educational standards for nearly 200 survivors between the ages of 9 and 25 until it moved locations one year later. The students and teachers, who were also survivors, were both Jewish and non-Jewish. The paper will focus particularly on the transnational dimensions of the school and the education provided as well as the difficulties faced by the teachers and students in the first crucial year after the end of the Second World War and the Holocaust.

Period	2025 Mar 28
Event title	European Social Science History Conference 2025
Event type	Conference
Location	Leiden, NetherlandsShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International