History
The palace left to a Nobel laureate
Warmątowice's past weaves together German, Polish and Czech history — Napoleonic wars, Henryk Sienkiewicz and a treasure never found.
History
1217 — 1998
1217
First mention of the village — a noble village with a fortified manor, moat and park.
15th c.
A manor already stands on the site of today's palace.
1602
A Renaissance fortified manor with a wide moat is built — a border stronghold of the Duchy of Legnica.
1748
The manor is rebuilt as a Baroque palace, whose form survives today.
1812
Ludwik Serafin von Olszewski acquires the estate.
1813
On 26 August the Battle of the Katzbach is fought nearby. The palace is Blücher's headquarters.
1909
Alfred von Olszewski dies. His will names Henryk Sienkiewicz as heir — the writer declines.
WWII
Wrocław's conservator Grundmann hides the city museum's coin collection in the palace. It has never been found.
1995
After years of neglect, the palace passes into private hands.
1998
The village is renamed Warmątowice Sienkiewiczowskie.
A will that shocked its era
Until 1909 the estate belonged to Alfred von Olszewski, a Germanised descendant of a noble family from eastern Poland. Moved by Henryk Sienkiewicz's novels — read in German translation — he wrote a will that was scandalous for its time.
His children would inherit only if, by the age of 30, they passed exams in Polish language, history and culture and married Poles. Otherwise the estate would pass to Sienkiewicz — never to the Prussian state.
“Although I write these words in German before a Prussian notary, today I feel Polish … This is the great merit of Henryk Sienkiewicz and his books, which awakened my conscience and national spirit.”
Sienkiewicz's reply
Sienkiewicz learned of the will on 11 June 1909 in Kraków. The widow, Baroness Gabriela von Zedlitz und Neukirch, first tried to overturn it and then negotiated with the writer.
Sienkiewicz renounced the inheritance. A deposit placed by the widow later went to a Polish educational institution, and the estate stayed in the family until the Second World War.
“I and my successors renounce all rights to the inheritance. (…) No one is drawn to Poland and the Polish idea by the threat of losing the land inherited from their fathers.”
The Battle of the Katzbach
On 26 August 1813 Napoleon's troops and the Russo-Prussian Army of Silesia under Field Marshal Blücher clashed unexpectedly in the fields around the village. The palace was Blücher's headquarters.
The battle ended in French defeat. Every year in late August a historical encampment with a re-enactment of the battle is held nearby.
The lost collection
During the Second World War, Wrocław's conservator Grundmann hid the city museum's coin collection here. It has never been found.
After the war the palace fell into neglect; since 1995 it has been privately owned and brought back to life.
From the archive
Stay in a palace that remembers four centuries
Five intimate guest rooms, halls for weddings and meetings, a park with a moat and fallow deer. A place to rest and to celebrate.