boy who, with his delicacy and sensitiveness, is very incongruous in contrast with his collective peers.
why would you think such a story is specific to Sixties/Seventies Poland? if anything, it would be much more believable as a contemporary story, methinks. people back then read "difficult" books and discussed the philosophical meaning of life much more than they do today - and were in general encouraged to do so by the education system. in many circles, if you didn't know Cortazar from Camus you faced a social death! ;-) so your assumption that a sensitive schoolboy would stick out like a sore thumb awash in a sea of troll-like brainwashed communist brutes is not really completely right... you might wanna push your story back to Stalinist times to achieve that effect.