How did this happen?

https://campusbemke.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/campus-o-nas5.webp

How did this happen?

It all started with a dream. A dream of a place where everyone has access to the best education. Of a welcoming space in which to grow. About an environment that will inspire education and educate how to inspire others. About an all-encompassing campus – along the lines of places that have so far only been accessible abroad and to the few.

This dream was shared by the TDJ Foundation – which supports the education of children and young people – with the Polish Pallottines of Klecza Dolna in 2020.

The location was no coincidence – it grew out of a similar idea to serve others.

After two years of meetings, a lot of analysis and networking with local institutions and entrepreneurs, the dream began to become a reality.

In September 2022, the first bell sounded for the Campus Bemke and the Campus Bemke Foundation, which manages it. It is a long-term project, based on cooperation with the local community. We believe that its creation will permanently change the educational and cultural-social landscape not only of Wadowice and Malopolska, but also of the whole of Poland.

2020-2022 r.

The establishment of a partnership between the TDJ Foundation, which specialises in educational projects, and the congregation of Polish Pallottines, who for many years carried out pastoral and educational activities in Klecza Dolna near Wadowice - on the site of the current Campus Bemke. The aim of the partnership is to further develop the grounds and activities which were to be handed over to the care of the newly established Campus Bemke Foundation.
https://campusbemke.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Linia-czasu-22-640x427.jpg

2013-2014 r.

The Society of the Catholic Apostolate - the Pallottines - establish a public Catholic Primary School named after Fr Leon Bemke on Kopiec. In Klecza Dolna, not far from the home of the Pallottines, the Na Kopcu Kindergarten is founded. The facility is set up by the TDJ Foundation, which is part of the TDJ family company.
https://campusbemke.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/2013.jpg

1993 - 2014 r.

The novitiate of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate, a one-year preparation for life in the community of the Pallottine Fathers, was launched. For a whole year of spiritual, intellectual and physical work, after receiving the garb of the Association, candidates could begin further formation in the Major Seminary or formation in the ministry of a religious brother.
https://campusbemke.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/campus-jak-do-tego-doszlo-640x480.webp

1984 r.

The Pallottines of Wadowice were given back the building of the Collegium Marianum, the former seminary and gymnasium for boys. For the previous three decades, by decision of the communist authorities, the building had housed a hospital, and the activities of the school and seminary run by the priests had initially been severely limited and later suspended.
https://campusbemke.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1984-campus2.webp

1952 r.

Part of the Pallottine property is taken over by the communist authorities. In the buildings of the school and of the dormitory the Wadowice District Hospital was opened. A small part of the buildings was left to the clergy, where the priests and brothers organised a seminary. Soon, however, they had to give up educational work altogether.
https://campusbemke.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Rok-52.jpg

1943-1945 r.

The Collegium Marianum, a male gymnasium run by the Pallottines, is taken over by the Nazis, who convert it into a school for Luftwaffe cadets for a year. After the Second World War, the Pallotines regain their former premises on Kopiec and open a school in it, which had operated on the site since 1909. However, plans for its modernisation were thwarted by the authorities of the time and the clergy would have to postpone them for many decades.
https://campusbemke.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/43-45.jpg

1920s.

The Pallottines expand the house on Kopiec - they are helped by donors and the brothers themselves even make the bricks needed for the building work. By the end of the 1920s the gymnasium could already educate 200 pupils and had a small dormitory.
https://campusbemke.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/lata-20-campus2.webp

June 1909.

Father Alojzy Majewski buys the land on the hill called Kopec, on the border between Wadowice and Klecza Dolna, where he establishes the first Pallottine house in Poland and a male secondary school - Collegium Marianum. Educational activities are one of the priorities of the clergy and the school opens its doors to the first students in September of the same year.
https://campusbemke.pl/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/campus-jak-do-tego-doszlo4.webp