Brzeg Dolny [ˈbʐɛɡ ˈdɔlnɨ] (German: Dyhernfurth) is a town in Wołów County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship in south-western Poland.
[2] It is located 31 km (19 mi) north-west of Wrocław on the Oder River, and is the site of a large chemical plant complex, PCC Rokita SA.
Brzeg Dolny was first mentioned under the Old Polish name Brzege in a 1353 deed as a part of the Duchy of Wrocław, then within the Bohemian (Czech) Crown Lands.
The Warzyń district is older, mentioned as a village in a 1261 document of Duke Henry III the White when the region was still part of medieval Piast-ruled Poland.
In 1663, it was officially renamed from its Polish name to Dyhernfurth,[3] after the Dyhrn family, and was granted town privileges by Emperor Leopold I of Habsburg.
The baron made efforts to expand the new town, opening a Catholic school for boys and building a chapel under the patronage of St. Hedwig.
Their arrival was connected to the printing house of Shabbatai Bass; the press personnel consisted of Polish and Czech Jews from Prague, Kraków and Wodzisław.
The new owners subsequently modernized the Baroque palace and the adjoining park according to the plans of Carl Gotthard Langhans.
Langhans also directed the construction of a large neo-classical pavilion perpendicular to the central structure, which became known as the “Little Palace.” Following these changes, the grand complex remained much the same until 1849, when it passed into the hands of Tony von Lazareff.
A German unit with roughly the strength of a battalion crossed the Oder River early on February 5, 1945, seized the factory, and deployed an anti-tank screen.
On that day, the Germans destroyed documentation and evidence of the camp's atrocities and pumped tabun into the Oder River, while the screening force resisted two small-scale Soviet counter-attacks.
On the park's west side, at Aleje Jerozolimskie (one of the town's main streets), stands the Chapel of St. Hedwig, just north of which is the Convent of the Sisters of Charity of St. Charles Borromeo.
In Osiedle Warzyń can be found the KHS complex, which features a hotel and a variety of athletic facilities, including swimming pools and tennis courts.