Herman Marczak - May 12, 1982
Higher Education
Was there uh, the possibility for you to attend universities, or was that limited?
It was, to, to, as far as I can remember, it--we--it was in the papers about quotas in the universities. But the drive for higher education, for some reason, was not like it is in this country. Can--from the, the, the young people which I grew up with, let's say from mine age, boys or girls who went after the seventh grade with the public school from six 'til seventh grade...
Mm-hm.
...to Poland, that was it. I don't remember if ten or twenty or, or even twenty-five in the whole city went to higher education. I knew from two, three male students which went uh, went to universities or whatever, I--that, that I can remember. But it was very, very seldom.
Did they have...
Maybe, maybe from the bigger cities it was different.
Mm-hm.
But uh, I'm just, what I can remember, I'm just trying to tell what I can remember that very, very few went on to any higher education past tenth or public schools.
You think that's because there wasn't emphasis on it or because it was limited?
It was not an emphasis on it, no, it was not an emphasis on it. It was, it was limited. We knew that the uni...first of all, the whole higher educational system in Poland probably consist of a very, very small--because if that country would have enough people educated, it, it would never happen the way it happened. That is mine opinion.
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