Klasztor i gimnazjum OO. Bernardynów w Radecznicy w latach 1939-1950

Abstrakt

The origins of the cloister-sanctuary of St Anthony of Padua, run by the Bernardine Fathers in Radecznica, reaches back to 1664. In 1922 there was established a Seraphic elegy, that is to say, a secondary school for boys who intended to enter the order.

In the period of 1939-1944 the cloister in Radecznica played a prominent role both as a sanctuary and an underground centre of the Home Army. On the basis of the pre-war secondary school there was organized clandestine tuition covering a secondary school curriculum.

After 1944, during the formation of the communist regime, the cloister cooperated with the Association „Freedom and Independence”, and in result of the clandestine tuition the St Anthony Private Secondary School of the Bernardine Fathers was reactivated.

The elections to the Sejm of 1947 were forged. Consequently, education was dominated by the so-called ideological offensive, and the Bernardine school would be harassed by various kinds of visitations. It did not want to succumb to the communist ideology in the period when the Church-State relations were tense. Eventually the school was liquidated.

At the same time the authorities took advantage of the fact that the Bernardine Fathers had cooperated with the independent organization „Freedom and Independence”, and arrested the religious, who in 1951 were tried and sentenced to long-term imprisonment.

Thus the cloister was liquidated for some time and the school for ever.