Abandoned sanatorium building in Sokołowsko (formerly: Görbersdorf), Lower Silesian voivodeship, Poland. Photographs © Grzegorz Bijak.
“Görbersdorf didn’t differentiate from neighbouring villages until it was visited in 1849 by Countess Maria von Colomb, a niece of Prussian General Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. The countess, delighted by the scenery, persuaded her brother-in-law Hermann Brehmer to establish a health resort for consumptive patients. In 1854 she and Brehmer opened the world’s first sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis at Görbersdorf. The care included the Priessnitz method of hydrotherapy and also a precursory method of climatic-dietetic treatment was applied. The treatment of consumption practised by Alexander Spengler at Davos, perpetuated by Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain, was modelled after Görbersdorf, which at times was called the "Silesian Davos”, although it should be called Davos “Swiss Görbersdorf”. The resort was relatively expensive, but well organised, and before 1888 it had both a post office and phone lines. At the same time the quantity of 730 curates well exceeded the number of inhabitants. Several further sanatoriums were established in the following years and until World War I, Görbersdorf had become popular with guests from all over Europe, who had numerous mansions and even a Russian Orthodox chapel erected. At the beginning of the 20th century Scandinavian guests introduced snow skiing and a ski jumping hill was opened in 1930.
In 1945 Görbersdorf, now belonging to Poland, was named Sokołowsko in honour of the merits of the Polish internist Alfred Sokołowski who had been a close co-worker of Hermann Brehmer. The now-called Grunwald sanatorium has continued to operate as a public anti-consumptive resort, while large parts of the facilities decayed. On the initiative of medical director Stanisław Domin the treatment profile was broadened to all kind of lung diseases, later also dementia. The filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski, whose father suffered from tuberculosis, spent several years of his youth at Sokołowsko.
In the 1970s the settlement was being transformed into Provincial Centre of Winter Sports, but due to lack of resources the project was not completed.“ [text source]
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