views were no doubt an expression of their lack of deeper academic interest, as indeed became very evident in their daily schoolwork. Their theoretical interests were minimal. It was typical that their penchant for involvement in academic clubs diminished with each passing year. In the end, the school had to artificially maintain various clubs, as demanded by the Education Board. This phenomenon applied to all areas in which I worked. At best, the youth organisations of that type turned into centres of cheap politicking. Clubs [3] devoted to the humanities were only interested in papers on topical and political issues. Students also lacked any genuine interest and desire to explore issues in this area. Very few valuable books were read. Speakers and debaters were trying to show off with the utmost radical slogans, and particularly successful were Stalinist and revisionist demagogy. This did not concern only Jews, as the same tendency was observed among Polish youth, who cultivated only antisemitic, fascist ideology. In some schools, science clubs survived in one form or another because the issues discussed there sometimes aroused curiosity, while humanities clubs were virtually non-existent. In recent years, even interest in sports diminished. I know for sure that in my school there were no private clubs where young people could debate freely, without the school’s supervision. To what should we attribute these phenomena? I think that in recent years the significance of education in general has fallen, particularly in fascist states. The aim was, after all, to create a type of person who was uncritical. Attempts were made to appeal primarily to emotional rather than rational factors. This was a main slogan of the school curriculum and it had a very negative effect on the teaching programme, especially in the four-class middle school. Everything was taught very superficially; education was politicised in accordance with the interests of the regime. Thus, the youth became accustomed to superficial thinking and demagoguery by the school, which otherwise failed to offer a minimum basis of education and awaken young people's theoretical interests. If we add the impact of the press and radio, we cannot be surprised that in the years immediately preceding the war, the intellectual standards of young people were very poor indeed. Undoubtedly, [4] factors such as economic difficulties contributed significantly to such a state of things, especially among the Jewish lower-middle class. Such problems absorbed the parents and deprived them of contact with their children, which was particularly difficult in the field of ethnic Jewish education. Most parents spent all their time in shops and did
