Oleśnica Castle ( pl, Zamek oleśnicki) is a

castle A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified r ...

Oleśnica Oleśnica (pronounced ; german: Oels; szl, Ôleśnica) is a town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland, within the Wrocław metropolitan area. It is the administrative seat of Oleśnica County and also of the rural district of ...

Lower Silesian Voivodeship Lower Silesian Voivodeship, or Lower Silesia Province, in southwestern Poland, is one of the 16 voivodeships (provinces) into which Poland is divided. The voivodeship was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Wrocław, Legnica, Wałbr ...

, southwestern Poland.

History

It was erected in 1542–1561, replacing a Gothic fortress from the thirteenth century. It was the seat of the Dukes of Oleśnica until the nineteenth century. A fortified settlement was mentioned before the year 1238, and the first record of the castle dates from 1292. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the surviving buildings held Hungarian and Italian prisoners of war. Later, there was the Soviet branch office of the

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

. In the 1970s the castle underwent another renovation and it became a branch of the Archaeological Museum in Wroclaw, until abandoned in 1993. It has since been reoccupied by the Voluntary Labour Corps.

History

See also