Villard-de-Lans, under the Vercors plateau, was home to the Cyprian Norwid Polish Lyceum, organised for the duration of the Second World War. The Polish Red Cross rented three hotels in the town for this purpose in 1940. The pupils were demobilised young soldiers - volunteers from the September campaign, fighting in Norway and France in 1940. They were also refugees from prisoner-of-war camps and children of war refugees arriving in France and pre-war emigrants, often from mining areas. Many of the pupils intended to gain a secondary school leaving certificate and then make their way to the United Kingdom and join officers' schools, some - interrupting their studies - went to Polish units being formed in the United Kingdom, and the pupils and teachers of the Polish school also joined partisan activities as part of the POWN (Polish Organisation for Fighting for Independence).

The Vercors plateau was a favourable location for the concentration of armed French partisan units due to the terrain. After the landing of Allied troops on the Normandy coast, the Vercors was declared on 9 June 1944. 'free area'; nearly 5,000 partisans were stationed there at the time. In July 1944, mobilisation was announced in the Vercors; 27 pupils, teachers and staff of the Polish Lyceum in Villard-de-Lans then joined the partisan troops. On 20.07.1944, the Germans launched a general attack, making a landing the following morning on the Vassieux airfield awaiting the Allies. Among those who fought to defend the airfield were Polish schoolchildren and teachers - 5 of whom died on the spot.

In the cemetery at Villard-de-Lans, there is a grave with a substantial headstone with three plaques. In this grave lie 5 people associated with the Polish Lyceum: one of the students killed at Vassieux - Witold Nowak (1928-1944), two professors arrested three days after the massacre at the Vassieux airfield and shot near Lyon - Jan Harwas (1909-1944, professor of Greek and Latin) and Kazimierz Gerhart (1905-1944, professor of physics and chemistry), a student who died as a result of illness - Wacław Mrozek (1929-1945), and the co-founder of the Lyceum, Wacław Godlewski (1906-1996) - principal from March 1943 until March 1944, when he was arrested and deported to the Mauthausen camp, and died in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda.

The names of those buried appear on a centrally placed plaque.

A plaque to the right commemorates a larger number of pupils and teachers who died during the Second World War, detailing the circumstances of their deaths. Of these, only Witold Nowak, Jan Harwas and Kazimierz Gerhart are buried here. All those killed at Vassieux on 21.07.1944 are listed: Henryk Czarnecki (aged 18, student), Jerzy Delinger (aged 19, student), Witold Nowak (aged 16), Leon Pawłowski (aged 20), Józef Zglinicki (aged 18); shot on 30.07.1944: Zdzisław Hernik (aged 23); Ludwik Wilk, who died of wounds in Rencurel on 20.07.1944; Jan Harwas (aged 33) and Kazimierz Gerhart (aged 39), who were shot in Bron on 20.08.1944.

On the edge of the tomb is a plaque about the high school and the names of the fallen are also listed on this plaque. In addition, Roman Gajewski (aged 22), who died in 1943 in a concentration camp, Andrzej Kasprzyk (aged 23, former pupil), Eugeniusz Łukomski (aged 17, brother of a pupil), who died in Vassieux, Tadeusz Welfle (aged 48, doctor), who was killed in Normandy at Falaise on 20 and 21.August 1944, Jan Ambik (aged 22, former pupil), Marian Drohomirecki (aged 23, former pupil), Marian Szybka (aged 24, former pupil), fallen in Belgium on 7.09.1944. Wiktor Suchy (aged 25, former pupil), killed in the Netherlands on 6.11.1944 Zdzisław Jaworczak (aged 20, former pupil), killed in Saône-et-Loire in 1944. Marek Palmbach (aged 15, former pupil), Jozef Mrozinski shot down in a bomber over Cologne, Jan Nowiński (aged 21, former pupil) and Jozef Rutkowski (aged 15, former pupil) killed in the Netherlands and Normandy in 1944.

In the town of Villard-de-Lans, there is a memorial in the town square bearing the names of 10 fallen pupils, professors and staff, while the names of 18 Poles are engraved in the chapel of the seventh station of the Way of the Cross, erected in the style of the mountains along the road from Villard-de-Lans to Valchevriere.