Polish immigration to the Ronchamp coalfield is the largest and most influential immigration of people of Polish origin to the Ronchamp coalfield. It took place in three phases during the interwar period and strongly influenced the mining and cultural traditions of Ronchamp, which has been twinned with the town of Sułkowice in southern Poland since 2003.
In the 1850s, the Ronchamp collieries were booming, and the number of workers tripled over the decade, from 500 to 1,500. Demand for labor was so great that the neighboring communes were no longer sufficient, and the company was forced to hire foreign workers. [1] In 1861, a dozen Piedmontese were hired at the Ronchamp mines. However, they were poorly received by the local population and management, and soon left. [1] Later, in the 1870s, following the Kulturkampf, several Poles left their homeland, and a small number settled in Ronchamp. [1]
During the First World War, many mobilized workers were injured, killed, or reported missing, and the government decided to recruit foreign workers to replace them. [2] In Ronchamp, the labor problem was less acute, as miners from the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Belgium coalfields, as well as German prisoners of war, had been employed in the mines since 1916. [3] But at the end of the war, workers from the Nord and German prisoners (400 at the Ronchamp mines) returned home and reconstruction began. [4] To make up for this sudden shortfall, the mines hired 200 Chinese workers. However, these workers were still frowned upon by the local population, and the miners went on strike to demand that they be removed from the shafts. [4] These workers were hired without being trained in mining techniques, and although they represented only 20% of the workforce, they were responsible for 30% of accidents at the bottom of the mines. In 1919, Poland was experiencing strong demographic growth, while France was short of workers. [4] On September 3, 1919, the two countries signed an immigration agreement governing the introduction of Polish workers into France. In December of the same year, the Ronchamp collieries received 112 Polish farm workers from the Warsaw region to replace the Chinese. [4] The Poles were generally well received by the Ronchamp population, but their integration remained difficult. [3] They had come to Ronchamp without their families, to work in an unfamiliar profession. Added to this is the language barrier and unfamiliar territory. For these reasons, most of them left. [5] Nevertheless, with a family of five children and twenty-six singles, Polish nationality was still the third largest in Ronchamp in 1921, when immigration intensified. [5]
When France occupied Düsseldorf and Duisburg, many Polish miners moved to Westphalia with their families, a movement that gained momentum in January 1923. [6] The German miners went on strike, while the Poles continued to work. The French and Polish authorities advised the miners to seek employment in French mines. [6] The Ronchamp collieries benefited from a large influx of skilled miners until 1925. In January 1924, 403 of the 972 miners were Polish. The peak of the Polish workforce was reached in September of the same year, with 581 workers. [6]
In 1925, the proportion of Poles dropped sharply following a halt in recruitment and a poor trading situation. However, the following year, the administration noted that there were as many departures as arrivals. [7] In 1926, Poincaré's monetary stabilization halted inflation, triggering an economic crisis in France. Many mining companies, including Ronchamp, laid off Polish workers until 1927. In 1929, the number of Polish workers at the Ronchamp mines was at its lowest, at 132. [7]
In April 1929, the reopening of borders encouraged the return of foreigners to Ronchamp. The number of Poles arriving increased from 308 in February 1930 to 450 in January 1931. 70% of them lived in the communes of Ronchamp, Champagney, and Magny-Danigon, as close as possible to their place of work. The rest lived in neighboring communes such as Clairegoutte, Frédéric-Fontaine, and Palante. [7] At the beginning of 1931, the Ronchamp coalfield was home to 1,017 Poles, including 424 workers, representing 90% of the foreign population and half of the workforce. [8]
| Year | Polish families |
|---|---|
| 1921 | 1 |
| 1923 | 42 |
| 1924 | 87 |
| 1925 | 135 |
| 19217 | 201 |
In the 1930s, the Ronchamp collieries were hit hard by the economic crisis. [10] Despite these financial difficulties, the company remained optimistic about recovery, choosing to halt new hiring, promote voluntary redundancies, and limit layoffs. [8] In 1934, the company suddenly decided to massively lay off its Polish workforce, and 124 miners were dismissed from the Ronchamp mines. Some were retrained as farm workers thanks to government aid, while others preferred to move to other mining areas or work in factories around Belfort and Montbéliard. [11] The decline in the Polish workforce continued the following year when 112 workers were laid off. Additionally, Polish workers' identity cards were restricted to the département where they were issued, which limited their mobility in seeking new employment opportunities. [11]
After 1936, mining activity picked up slightly and the mines needed new miners, so previously dismissed Poles returned to work in Ronchamp. The number of underground miners rose from 491 in December 1937 to 542 in March 1938. [12] In 1938, the Daladier government took measures against foreigners, limiting their freedom of movement, making naturalization more difficult, and requiring them to have a health booklet. In 1939, their freedom of association was curtailed. [13] These measures triggered social unrest in Ronchamp, which, unlike other coalfields, was not suppressed. [13] In 1939, before France was mobilized for the Second World War, several sons of Polish immigrants refused to be naturalized in order to escape the war but were still liable to be called up to fight. In August 1940, the German authorities counted 509 Poles living in the coalfield, 163 of them employed by the mine. [14]
Polish immigration strongly influenced Ronchamp's mining and cultural traditions. [15] In all French coalfields, measures were taken to foster social ties between immigrants in order to boost their productivity. For example, mining housing estates were built for immigrant families, and special educational and religious programs were set up. [16] The Poles regularly organized processions and pilgrimages specific to their customs, but local residents sometimes also took part, as on the Polish national holiday, when the “ Harmonie des houillères”, made up entirely of French musicians, took part. [17] Associations are also set up to maintain Polish culture in Ronchamp, including music, dance, sport, theater, art, and religion. [18] The company and local associations also seek to bring the two communities closer together, notably through sports clubs, a Franco-Polish festival committee and small businesses. Additionally, both communities shared common mining traditions, further connecting their experiences. [19]
After the “ Retrofolies ” came to an end in 2000, the Ronchamp festival committee decided to organize a Franco-Polish festival in honor of the former Polish miners of Ronchamp from September 14 to 16, 2001. The festival was motivated by the desire of the miners' descendants to reconnect with their homeland. Following the festival, the commune and the festival committee decided to set up a twinning arrangement with a Polish town. Research was carried out in the Krakow region, as this is where the Polish miners from Ronchamp were thought to have come from (a belief disproved by subsequent historical research). A rapprochement was quickly made with the town of Sułkowice, which was the most motivated. Over the following years, several trips were organized between the two towns. The twin town was formalized on September 21, 2003, when the two mayors, Raymond Massinger and Joseph Mardaus, signed a parchment. The twinning took place against the backdrop of Poland's accession to the European Union. [20] [21] [22]
As part of the cultural development policy of the Ballons des Vosges regional nature park, a contemporary dance show is created in Ronchamp by the festival committee to pay tribute to former Polish miners and celebrate the twinning with Sułkowice. The show, entitled Swiatlo, which means “light” in Polish, was performed during the European Heritage Days in September 2004 by a troupe of three musicians and four dancers from Belfort. In 2005, the show was performed in two other towns in the nature park: Giromagny and Gérardmer. It was also performed in China. [23]
Masses in Polish are organized once a month in Ronchamp's Notre-Dame-du-Bas church by the Polish Catholic Mission of the North-East, one of the consequences of Polish immigration still visible in 2005. [24]
The Ronchamp Coal Mines were an area of coal mines located in the Vosges and Jura coal mining basins, in eastern France. They covered three municipalities; Ronchamp, Champagney and Magny-Danigon. Operated for more than two centuries, from the mid-eighteenth century until the mid-twentieth century, they have profoundly changed the landscape, the economy and the local population.
The Sainte Marie Coal Mine is one of the major Ronchamp coal mines, located in Bourlémont, in eastern France. It was worked intermittently between 1866 and 1958, then finally closed. The concrete headframe was reinforced in 1924 by Charles Tournay. This Liège engineer and architect specialized in constructing concrete headframes. On 29 March 2001, the headframe was listed as a French national monument historique.
The Compagnie minière de Carmaux, or Société des mines de Carmaux, was one of the first coal mining companies in France. It was founded in 1752 in the isolated Carmaux basin. The company was at first slow to expand and modernize, but grew much faster after the introduction of a railway connection in the 1850s. A strike in 1892 drew national attention and had an important impact on French labour relations. By 1900 there were almost 3,500 miners and 500,000 tons of coal were produced each year. Demands increased with the two world wars of the 20th century, and foreign miners were brought in to compensate for shortage of French laborers. The company was nationalized in 1946.
The Notre-Dame Pit was one of the principal mine shafts of the Ronchamp Mining Company, located in North-Eastern France in the hamlet of Éboulet, the commune of Champagney, and the department of Haute-Saône. The pit was created by a rival company, The Forge Masters, which had owned the hamlet of Éboulet's mines since 1851, fifteen years before the Ronchamp Mining Company acquired them. As its supply of coal dwindled, the mine was converted into a water well used for pumping water used in the mining process to several other nearby mines. The pit was plugged in 1958, when all the coal mines formerly owned by Ronchamp were closed by the government utility, Électricité de France.
Les Télots Mine extracted oil shale dating from the Asselian era at Saint-Forgeot, on the outskirts of Autun in Saône-et-Loire town in central-eastern France.
The Chanois coal mine is one of the main shafts of the Ronchamp coal mines, in the French commune of Ronchamp, within the Haute-Saône department, belonging to the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. It was the center of Ronchamp's coal mining operations from the late 19th century until the mines closed in 1958. It was therefore chosen as the site for the coal mine's ancillary facilities, including a coal preparation plant, a coking plant, and a power station. It succeeded the Saint Joseph shaft in 1895 and ceased mining in 1951.
The Saint-Louis Coal Mine is one of the main shafts at the Ronchamp coal mines in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region of France. Located in the hamlet of La Houillère, in the commune of Champagney, it was the first real mine shaft to be dug in the Ronchamp coalfield. It was the most productive coal mine in the Ronchamp coalfield during the first half of the 19th century. On 10 April 1824, this shaft also experienced the first firedamp explosion in the coalfield, which killed twenty people and injured sixteen others. Later, on 31 May 1830, a second, even more deadly, firedamp explosion killed twenty-eight people. The pit was finally abandoned and backfilled in 1842. A mining estate was built next to the pit in the 1850s.
The Saint-Joseph Coal Mine is one of the main shafts of the Ronchamp coal mine, in the Ronchamp commune, within the French region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. It was one of the most productive coal mines in the Ronchamp coalfield during the second half of the 19th century. Throughout this period, it was the center of activity for the mining company, with the installation of a coking plant and a coal-washing plant, before being replaced by the Chanois shaft. The Saint Joseph shaft was hit by several disasters. On August 10, 1859, a firedamp explosion killed twenty-nine people. On May 8, 1860, another explosion destroyed the underground tunnels and the roof of the surface recette building.
The hamlet of La Houillère is located in the French communes of Ronchamp and Champagney, in the heart of the mining region, in the Haute-Saône département of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region.
The Etançon mine is one of the main mines of the Ronchamp coal mines, in the commune of Ronchamp, in the Burgundy-Franche-Comté region of France. It is the only mine in the coalfield dug in the 20th century, and also the only one dug by Électricité de France. It operated from 1950 to 1958, when the outcrops were brought back into production. By extending mining for a further ten years, it made it easier for miners to retire.
The Saint-Charles shaft is one of the main collieries of the Ronchamp coal mine. It is located in Ronchamp, Haute-Saône, in eastern France. In the second half of the nineteenth century, this shaft made it possible to mine large coal seams, contributing to the company's golden age.
On 10 April 1824 an explosion occurred in the Saint-Louis coal mine in Champagney, France. The explosion, called the first disaster at the Saint-Louis coal mine, was the first firedamp explosion in the Ronchamp and Champagney coalfields (Haute-Saône) and one of the first in France. It was also one of the deadliest in the history of the Ronchamp coal mines, killing twenty and injuring sixteen. The disaster had a profound impact on the local population and national opinion, calling into question the safety of firedamp mines and the conditions of ventilation.
The Ronchamp coal mines adit is a large drainage channel with brick walls. It was used to drain the mine water between 1783 and 1840. It has a section of 70 × 50 cm and is 1.3 km long. It was supplied by the Henri IV shaft and the Clocher adit.
The mining basin of Ronchamp and Champagney is a territory located in the department of Haute-Saône and the French region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté; economically, socially, environmentally, and culturally marked by the intensive exploitation of coal in its subsoil between the 18th and 20th centuries. It consists of the three main municipalities of Ronchamp, Champagney, and Magny-Danigon as well as several hamlets and other neighboring villages.
The cokerie-lavoir du Chanois is an industrial complex of the Ronchamp collieries that combines coal sorting-screening, washing, and preparation: facilities on a site adjacent to the Chanois pit, in Magny-Danigon, Haute-Saône, in the French region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.
The Magny shaft is one of the main shafts of the Ronchamp colliery, located in the commune of Magny-Danigon, in the French department of Haute-Saône and the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region. With a depth of 694 meters, it was the deepest mine shaft in France when it was commissioned in 1878. It is also the Ronchamp shaft with the longest period of operation, at 80 years. This long period of mining was interspersed with several periods of service, the longest lasting more than a decade between the wars. On September 1, 1879, the colliery suffered a firedamp explosion that killed sixteen people. From this shaft, the last coal car in the coalfield was hauled up on Saturday, May 3, 1958.
The Ronchamp colliery shafts are a series of collieries undertaken by the various mining companies in the Ronchamp coalfield between the early 19th and mid-20th centuries at Ronchamp, Champagney, and Magny-Danigon, in the Haute-Saône département of France.
Polish immigration to the Nord-Pas-de-Calais coalfield took place before and especially after the First World War. It took place mainly in the second half of the 1920s, when the mines, drowned in October and November 1918 by the Germans at the end of the war, were once again usable. Half of the Polish immigrants had initially entered Germany as Westphalian miners.
The Ronchamp coal mine railway is a former industrial rail track serving the Ronchamp coal mines. It is located in the French department of Haute-Saône and the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The link between the mines' local rail network and the line from Paris-Est to Mulhouse-Ville runs near the Ronchamp station via a particular station connected to the main line.
The Ronchampthermal power station is a coal-fired power plant near the Chanois coal mine in the town of Ronchamp, Haute-Saône, in the French region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.
