Bielsko (german: Bielitz, cs, Bílsko) was until 1950 an independent town situated in Cieszyn Silesia,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

. In 1951 it was joined with Biała Krakowska to form the new town of Bielsko-Biała. Bielsko constitutes the western part of that town. Bielsko was founded by the Cieszyn Piast dukes in the late 13th century on the grounds of village later called Stare Bielsko (''Old Bielsko''), on the Biała River. It was first mentioned in a written document in 1312. Originally settled by Germans, it became the largest German-language center (''Deutsche Sprachinsel Bielitz'') in the Duchy of Teschen, and remained so until the end of

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 ...

. In 1572 it gained autonomy as the Duchy (State) of Bielsko. During the 18th century a rapid development of

textile Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not t ...

industry occurred, and at the beginning of the 19th century more than 500

weaver Weaver or Weavers may refer to: Activities * A person who engages in weaving fabric Animals * Various birds of the family Ploceidae * Crevice weaver spider family * Orb-weaver spider family * Weever (or weever-fish) Arts and entertainment ...

s worked in the town. After the 1920 division of Cieszyn Silesia between

and

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

it became, despite the protests of local Germans, a part of Poland. According to the Austrian census of 1910 the town had 18,568 inhabitants. The census asked people for their native language: 15,144 (84.3%) were German-speaking, 2,568 (14.3%) were Polish-speaking and 136 (0.7%) were Czech-speaking.

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...

were not allowed to declare

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a v ...

, and most of them thus declared German as their native language. The most populous religious groups were

Roman Catholics The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

with 10,378 (55.9%), followed by

Protestants Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

with 4,955 (26.7%) and the

with 3,024 (16.3%).Ludwig Patryn (ed):
Die Ergebnisse der Volkszählung vom 31. Dezember 1910 in Schlesien
', Troppau 1912. The vast majority of the Jews were exterminated by Nazis during World War II, and the German population was expelled by the Soviets after the war under the terms demanded by Stalin at the Potsdam Conference.

Notable people

* Three well-known Holocaust survivors from Bielsko are Kitty Hart-Moxon, Roman Frister and Gerda Weissmann Klein. All three have written autobiographies and other works about their experiences during the Second World War. * The ancestors of the British peer Christopher Tugendhat, Baron Tugendhat, are also from what was Bielitz. * Gustav Gyula Geyer (1828–1900), Hungarian educator and entomologist

Footnotes

References

External links

*
History of Bielsko
{{Authority control Bielsko-Biała Cieszyn Silesia

Notable people

See also

Footnotes

References

External links