Jeseník Water Fortress

During tours of the Jeseník Water Fortress, visitors will learn about the beauties and treasures of the surrounding mountains as well as the atrocities of the 17th-century witch trials.

The village of Freiwaldau, today’s city of Jeseník, was established in the 13th century at the junction of strategic trade routes between Moravia and Silesia. Since the very beginning, it was guarded by a citadel, originally comprising only a dwelling tower enclosed with moats, triple in some places. In 1547, the Freiwaldau domain was acquired by the Diocese of Wroclaw and the water fortress remained the only protection of the town, which did not receive a right to build its own fortification walls. Over time, the building no longer suited the demands for living standards, and it was redeveloped into the present form around 1730. The citadel remained in the ownership of the bishops of Wroclaw until the end of World War II, during which the spoils of war were stored there.

The Jeseník Water Fortress now houses permanent exhibits of the local history, fauna and flora, and the cellars offer the interactive Witch Trials Exhibition, which presents, in an engaging way, one of the saddest periods in the region’s history, one that cost the lives of hundreds of innocent people. The inquisition trials, unparalleled in Central Europe, tormented Silesia from 1622 until 1695.

The exhibition in the cellars, opened in 2011, will unveil the hysteria of that period thanks to modern equipment including an audio-guide, touch screens, and a film about the first victim of the Freiwaldau Inquisition, projected onto a wall of dry ice fog. Verbatim, hand-made copies of certain important documents and replicas of torture implements are also on display.