In 1943, as a result of the decision taken by the Polish and Mexican authorities, support ed by Great Britain and the United States of America, a settlement of Polish refugees wascreated in Santa Rosa near the town of Leon in Mexico. The refugees came from a group of people deported deep into the USSR from the Eastern borderlands of the Second Republic of Poland during World War II. The inhabitants of the settlement included many children and women. That fact resulted in the setting up of a nursery school, a primary school, a secondary school, as well as vocational schools and courses for that population of Polish citizens. There was also a large orphanage in that place. All the work carried out by teachers and tutors at those institutions was aimed at educating the youngest generation of refugees to become good Polish citizens and preparing them to undertake professional work after returning to an independent Poland. The Mexican branch of the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment in Mexico of the government in London was in charge of educational work in the settlement. Santa Rosa played an important and praiseworthy role in the history of Polish education in exile, as well as in the history of Polish education as a whole. In December 1946 the settlement was closed down. Its inhabitants, school children and teenagers, remained in the vast majority in exile, mainly in the USA. A small number of children stayed in a Refuge for Polish Children, which existed in Tlalpan in the suburbs of Mexico in the years 1947–1952.
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