Institute Mariagaard Kwatrecht

In 1919, the provincial council of East Flanders decided to establish two agricultural schools in Kwatrecht, one for boys and one for girls. The buildings were solemnly inaugurated on October 27, 1923. As a result of the economic crisis, classes were suspended in 1935 and the three buildings were sold to the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary in Ghent. The intention was to establish a sanatorium for men, but at the start of the Second World War the buildings located in the bunker line of the Ghent Bridge Head suffered heavy damage. The plans were shelved.
In 1943, the buildings were seized by the German occupiers and converted by the SS as "Reichsshule Flandern" for the Hitler Youth. This elite school with boarding facilities was the only one of its kind in Belgium.
The buildings were thoroughly adapted for the approximately one hundred students aged ten to twelve who stayed there.
Three identical underground air raid shelters were set up in the front garden. One of the openings is closed by bluestone slabs, the other two have a round-arched brick entrance that has now been closed. The air raid shelters consisted of a succession of five masonry brick corridors, each 10 meters long, zigzag behind each other and closed by doors.
When the German troops withdrew, the school was moved and the buildings dismantled and looted. The Allied troops used the domain as an open-air barracks. It was not until 1946 that the buildings were released and the Sisters of Charity reopened the Higher Rural Domestic School with a boarding school for girls.
(Source: Flanders Inventory – heritage object)

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck