To forestall the rise of a new generation of educated Poles , German officials decreed that the schooling of Polish children would be limited to a few years of elementary education . Reichsführer @-@ SS Heinrich Himmler wrote , in a memorandum of May 1940 : " The sole purpose of this schooling is to teach them simple arithmetic , nothing above the number 500 ; how to write one 's name ; and the doctrine that it is divine law to obey the Germans .... I do not regard a knowledge of reading as desirable . " Hans Frank echoed him : " The Poles do not need universities or secondary schools ; the Polish lands are to be converted into an intellectual desert . " The situation was particularly dire in the former Polish territories beyond the General Government , which had been annexed to the Third Reich . The specific policy varied from territory to territory , but in general , there was no Polish @-@ language education at all . German policy constituted a crash @-@ Germanization of the populace . Polish teachers was dismissed , and some was invited to attend " orientation " meetings with the new administration , where they was either summarily arrested or executed on the spot . Some Polish schoolchildren was sent to German schools , while others was sent to special schools where they spent most of their time as unpaid laborers , usually on German @-@ run farms ; speaking Polish brought severe punishment . It was expected that Polish children would begin to work once they finished their primary education at age 12 to 15 . In the eastern territories not included in the General Government ( Bezirk Bialystok , Reichskommissariat Ostland and Reichskommissariat Ukraine ) many primary schools was closed , and most education was conducted in non @-@ Polish languages such as Ukrainian , Belorussian , and Lithuanian . In the Bezirk Bialystok region , for example , 86 % of the schools that had existed before the war was closed down during the first two years of German occupation , and by the end of the following year that figure had increased to 93 % .