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.

(Emphasis added. The Fascists likewise kept education overly basic for their African subjects.)

Quoting Tekeste Negash’s Italian Colonialism in Eritrea, 1882–1941: Policies, Praxis and Impact, pages 70–2:

In 1927 the Minister of Colonies Luigi Federezoni set out new policy guidelines when he wrote that, the natives twenty years thereafter would be what the Italian educational institutions had made them.22 The clear association which Martini perceived 20 years before was now firmly established by the Minister’s acceptance of the rôle of education in the colony.

The minister did not go into the details of what kind of an Eritrean Italy wanted to create through education. This was presumably left to experts on the subject. One of these experts was Rodolfo Micacchi, the Director of Education in the Ministry of Colonies, who was also instrumental in implementing school reforms in the Italian colony of Libya.23

Another expert who developed the connection between education and colonial rule was Professor Mininni Caracciolo. The Professor wrote:

We have to recognize from the outset that the teaching of natives along the same lines as in Europe has produced most sad and dangerous results for the natives as well as for the colonizers. It is therefore necessary that native education be adapted as much as possible to the conditions and needs of the native and to the character and specific exigencies of colonialism.24

He further argued that native education, although the most ponderous obligation of the colonizer, could be a useful instrument for the peaceful penetration and moral conquest of the native. Moreover the duty to educate the native ought to go hand in hand with the political, economic, administrative and military interests of the colonizer.

On the basis of his wide reading, Professor Caracciolo pointed out that colonial schools tended to alienate their pupils from their natural environment. This danger, advised the author, could be easily avoided by giving the native an education based on his own particular social and economic milieu and by making education a purely practical affair.25

In this way school would contribute to ameliorating the life of the native by allowing him the benefits of improvement (introduced by Italians in pursuance of their civilizing mission) without deviating the native from his environment.

Finally the author attempted to provide a solution to two criticisms. The first was the assertion that the educated native was much more difficult to govern than his non‐educated brother, and the second was the allegation by the enemies of colonial education that it invariably prepared the ground for the demise of European power.

The author challenged these views by arguing that the colonial power could prevent this by adequately controling native education and thus preventing school from being transmuted into a force for the subversion and dissolution of colonial domination.26

From 1934 native education in Eritrea was primarily justified for its usefulness in consolidating colonial rule. The Superintendent of Schools, Andrea Festa was closely associated with colonial policy on native education. Policy assumed a clarity missing during the earlier phase. Defining the scope of education, Festa explained:

The child ought to know something of our civilization in order to make him a conscious propagandist among the families who live far away inland. And through our educational policy, the native should know of Italy, her glories and her ancient history in order to become a conscious militant behind the shadow of our flag.27

In reforming the school system, Festa instructed that courses in hygiene and geography be expanded while the teaching of contentious historical issues such as the Risorgimento and other such issues were to be entirely omitted.28 With this kind of reformed curriculum, he thought that school could not but benefit the natives, ‘our future soldiers of Italy’.29 The reformed system freed the government from concern that Eritreans would be exposed to an educational programme available to Italian nationals.

While Festa, Caracciolo and De Leone argued their case for limiting native education to lower elementary school on political grounds, other additional reasons were developed in the 1930s. The view that Africans were pathologically inferior, already argued by a renowned Italian anthropologist since 1932, assumed more relevance after the establishment of the Italian African empire in 1936.30

In an international conference organized by the Italian Academy the delegation from Rome used a two‐pronged argument in explaining their views on colonial relations in general and native education in particular. At the general level of colonial relations the Italian position, as expressed by the anthropologist, Professor Lidio Cipriani, argued that the destiny of Africa was to be ruled by Europe because of their [delayed] mental capability Africans were unable to rule Africa to Europe’s satisfaction.31

He stressed the point that the purpose of colonialism was to rule, rather than prepare Africans for autonomy. Cipriani challenged France and Britain to admit this truth rather than to continue to pursue a false policy of preparing Africans for autonomy.32

Supporting Professor Cipriani on the alleged pathological and incurable inferiority of the blacks, the ex‐governor of Italian Somaliland wrote that the continued presence of colonialism depended, in addition to the use of force, on the separation of races at all levels and in particular schools.

‘Endowed with good memory which is less distracted by observation and reflection’, argued the former governor, ‘the native child excels his white counterpart in the first years of schooling’. So the author advised that in order to maintain ‘our superiority over the native we have to educate him separately’.33

Outlining the programme of colonial education, the Minister of Colonies Giuseppe Bottai wrote that the indigenous, for evident reasons of prestige, ought not to be educated but only instructed. Elaborating the distinction between education and instruction, the Minister stressed that the objectives of native education are not to produce masters of skills like ours but expert manual labourers within their limited capability.

Whereas separate education remained the norm throughout the colonial period, the limiting of native education to a lower elementary level became more emphasized during the 1932–41 period.

(Emphasis added.)


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

Click here for events that happened today (March 2).

1876: Pius XII, an arguable Axis collaborator, was born.
1880: Mitsumasa Yonai, Axis Navy Minister, existed.
1930: Josias joined the SS.
1933: The Imperial Japanese 4th Cavalry Brigade defended itself against Chinese troops, eventually winning with superior firepower.
1936: Werner von Blomberg issued orders for the reoccupation of Rhineland in western Germany as the Kriegsmarine launched U‐36.
1937: Cantieri Riuniti dell’Adriatico laid down Morosini’s keel in Monfalcone, Friuli‐Venezia Giulia.
1938: A special court that Berlin appointed tried Martin Niemöller for “anti‐German activities”. It sentenced him to seven months in sentence and fined him 2,000 Reichmarks.
1940: Adolf Schicklgruber met with U.S. Under Secretary of State, Sumner Welles, in Berlin! Earlier that morning, another interesting event was Fascist submarine U‐20 sinking the 5,222‐ton steam tanker Mirella, along with one of her crewmen and 3,900 tons of coal, just off Lowestoft, Suffolk, England, even though she was heading for Livorno, Fascist Italy. (I am presuming that this was a consequence of misidentification, but I would need to research this more to confirm that.) A Fascist He 111 aircraft also bombed and machine gunned the cargo‐liner SS Domala (carrying mainly British Indian subjects repatriated from the Reich) off the Isle of Wight, causing 108 casualties. Fascist submarine U‐17 (Kapitänleutnant Udo Behrens) sank a Netherlandish motor merchant, its general cargo, and all twelve of her crew.
1941: Köln (Cologne) experienced a heavy Allied bombing, and the Wehrmacht’s Twelfth Army moved from the Kingdom of Romania into the Kingdom of Bulgaria the day after Sofia joined the Axis. Axis submarine U‐147 fired a single G7a torpedo and hit a Norwegian merchant steamer in the forward hold, rapidly sinking it and massacring the master and twenty‐eight crewmen, including the two English mess boys, Stanley Scargill, (aged 14), and Micheal Gouldon, (aged 15). Some survivors climbed onto wreckage and the Fascists tried to question them, but they failed to understand them, so the Fascists sailed off. 1942: Palermo, Sicily experienced an Allied assault, losing its ammunition ship Cuma, whose explosion damaged five warships and eight freighters nearby. The Imperial Japanese 33rd and 55th Infantry Divisions crossed Sittang River at Kunzeik and Donzayit, Burma, forcing the British 2nd Battalion Royal Tank Regiment to fall back twenty miles as the Axis captured the village of Waw. East of Batavia, the Axis captured the oilfields at Tjepoe (now Cepu).
1943: Late that evening, somebody informed Auschwitz concentration camp commandant Rudolf Höss that 15,000 Berlin Jews were being transported to the camp; he ordered that the prisoners must be kept in good health during the journey so that they could work at Auschwitz. Coincidentally, Joseph Goebbels’s noted in his diary that his empire was ‘now definitely pushing the Jews out of Berlin’, and stated that many Jews were still hiding in the city and needed to be deported. Elsewhen, the Axis’s attempt to ship troops to New Guinea failed due to Allied intervention.
1944: Heinrich Himmler signed Aktion K into effect, which decreed that captured escapees of prisoners of war camps would be sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp, where they would face immediate execution upon arrival and their remains would be destroyed in the camp crematorium. Likewise, four hundred twenty‐one Czech prisoners transferred from Auschwitz to Buchenwald. Dock facilities at Frankfurt experienced an Allied bombing raid.
1945: Colonel General Walter Weiß reported that Soviet troops were surrounding his forces in the Danzig‐Westpreußen region (occupied Danzig and Poland) of the Greater German Reich. Axis General of the Infantry Hermann Niehoff became the commanding officer of the Fortress City of Breslau, and both Köln (Cologne) and the oil facility at Böhlen suffered an Allied bombing raid as the Axis lost Trier to the Allies.
1946: Count Fidél Pálffy ab Erdőd, Hungarian fascist, lost his life to Allied hangmen.
2007: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe denied that the Imperial military coerced women into sexual slavery.
2016: The Romanian Royal Council announced that Mihai, the former king of Romania, was to retire from public life.