page_title: Kiekrz, Poznań
section_title: History of the manor
hierarchical_section_title: Kiekrz, Poznań / Kiekrz Manor / History of the manor
caption_attribution_description: English: Kiekrz Manor, now Sanatorium.
context_page_description: Kiekrz is part of the city of Poznań in western Poland, situated on the northwest edge of the city, adjoining Kierskie Lake. It has several holiday sites and sailing clubs, and a significant number of mainly detached houses. Kiekrz is one of the 42 osiedles into which Poznań is divided for local government purposes.
context_section_description: The Kierscy family owned a manor house and folwark in 1524. Their estate consisted of fields, forests, the lake and a small river known then as the Ford (Bród). In 1523 Jan Kierski bequeathed half the village with the manor house, folwark, house and part of the lake (probably the Great Kierskie Lake) to his wife.
  The last German owner of the estate was K. Iffland, who, after the Greater Poland Uprising left Poland and in 1921 gave the properties back to the Poles. The estate belonged to Gen Aleksander Boruszczak for a short while. He repurchased the park – kept in good shape – with the square, buildings and orchard. One can therefore assume that the Kiekrz Park, now the property of the Rehabilitation Hospital for Children, owes its current appearance to its German owners. Boruszczak’s successor was Dr Zygmunt Kamiński.
  The last private owner was Władysław Ciechanowski. The Ciechanowscy family funded a shrine in honour of the Virgin Mary by a special path in the park. A memorial plaque and a figure of the Immaculate Virgin Mary were placed on its plinth. In 1928 the Ciechanowscy family sold the mansion and the surrounding estate to the health maintenance organization of the city of Poznań. The city rebuilt the mansion in the years 1928 – 1931, adding extensions among other things. Since then, summer camps for children have been organised there. Since 1931 the form of recreation has been health-school camps open all year round. Seasons last for three months and were for malnourished children and those threatened by tuberculosis. About a hundred patients stayed there during a single season.
  In 1934 the entire structure and the park became the property of the Social Insurance Institution. A preventorium for children was then built there which functioned until the outbreak of World War II.
  On the eve of the German aggression the preventorium was adapted as a military hospital. The Polish Army did not get the chance to use it, because German forces entered Kiekrz without fighting in the first days of September.
  During the occupation of Poland, Kiekrz (being part of Greater Poland) was incorporated into the Reich. The Warthegau was to be Germanised within ten years. The Nazis began devastating religious symbols in autumn 1939. Over the years of the war the shrines, figures and crosses began disappearing. The same fate befell the shrine of the Immaculate Virgin Mary. The preventorium was seized by the Landesversicherungsanstalt, which handed it on to the Nazi Party. Initially it was the seat of the Hitler Youth. Around 190 young Germans stayed there between the years of fourteen and eighteen. In 1943 the building was converted into the Institution for Osteo-Articular Tuberculosis for German children. Such a state stayed until the end of the war.
  The Red Army entered Kiekrz between January and February in 1945. The commander of the soviet squad was stationed, for a while, in the Institution of Tuberculosis. In February 1945 the Urban Social Comity in Poznań renamed the pre-war preventorium as an orphanage. It was occupied by around forty Polish children who had lost their parents in the war
  As of 1 January 1950 by decision of the Ministry of Health the State Sanatorium Against Tuberculosis in Kiekrz was created, which could house 150 patients. Four branches where operated, including a quarantine one. The facility operated in this capacity until 1967. In the years 1952 – 1961 the director of the centre was Dr Stanisław Bieniek. The facility was then expanded. The dormer part of the sanatorium (the oldest part, from 1909) was increased by a floor and the two side pavilions were connected to the main structure. In 1961 Dr Lucyna Łuczak became the new director. Carpentry workshops were added and the stores and the piggery were rebuilt. In 1963 a fence was made out of concrete slabs.
  The park was renovated in the years 1964 – 1966 and lighting was also added to it. The sanatorium owned a small holding where pigs were kept for the nutritional requirements of the patients and staff.
  In April 1967, due to the reduction in incidences of t
caption: Former Kiekrz manor, now sanatorium
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