Brnenec
Encyclopedia
Pardubice Region
Pardubice Region is an administrative unit of the Czech Republic, located mainly in the eastern part of its historical region of Bohemia, with a small part in northwestern Moravia. It is named after its capital Pardubice. "There are a total of 452 municipalities in the region...
of the Czech Republic
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
. It has around 1,400 inhabitants.
Villages Chrastová Lhota, Moravská Chrastová and Podlesí are administrative parts of Brněnec.
History
Next to an old trade route, the settlement of Moravská Chrastová was founded after 1200 by monks from a monastery in LitomyšlLitomyšl
Litomyšl is a town and municipality in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic. The chateau complex in the town centre is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.-History:...
. It is first mentioned in a document from 1323.
The first written mention of Brněnec is to be found in the 1557 act of partition of the dominion of Swojanow. In 1892, workers carrying out improvements to the Bělá nad Svitavou
Belá nad Svitavou
Bělá nad Svitavou is a village in the Czech Republic....
road stumbled upon the remnants of prehistoric clay jars in the vicinity of the Nová Amerika ("New America") inn, one kilometre west of Brněnec. Systematic excavation on this site in 1893 unearthed further archaeological finds. A neighbouring hillside of crevices and caves, known as Jeskyně Čertovy, had already yielded traces of earlier settlements.
With the construction of the railway from Prague
Prague
Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...
to Brno
Brno
Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...
, Brněnec received its own railway station on this main line. This encouraged numerous new industrial enterprises such as textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
factories to develop around the dominant business of the Daubek mills.
In 1930, the municipality
Municipality
A municipality is essentially an urban administrative division having corporate status and usually powers of self-government. It can also be used to mean the governing body of a municipality. A municipality is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district...
of Brněnec (including the then districts of Zářečí nad Svitavou, now part of the municipality of Březová nad Svitavou
Brezová nad Svitavou
Březová nad Svitavou is a town in the Czech Republic.-External links:*...
, and Podlesí counted 606 inhabitants, of whom 208 held German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
nationality. In 1939, as a result of German occupation and the ensuing retreat of Czech
Czech people
Czechs, or Czech people are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Chile, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries...
inhabitants, the total population had dropped to 490.
The municipality extended at that time only to the Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
n right bank of the river Svitava
Svitava
The Svitava is a river in the Pardubice and South Moravian regions of the Czech Republic. The Svitava rises near Svitavy, passes through Blansko, and flows into the Svratka in the Moravian city of Brno....
. On the opposite Moravia
Moravia
Moravia is a historical region in Central Europe in the east of the Czech Republic, and one of the former Czech lands, together with Bohemia and Silesia. It takes its name from the Morava River which rises in the northwest of the region...
n bank was the independent village of Moravská Chrastová, which, together with its districts of Chrastová Lhota and Půlpecen (now part of the municipality of Chrastavec
Chrastavec
Chrastavec is a village and municipality in Svitavy District in the Pardubice Region of the Czech Republic.The municipality covers an area of , and has a population of 256 ....
), had a total population in 1939 of 1,143 inhabitants and was therefore twice the size of Brněnec.
The town of Brněnec formed part of the administrative and judiciary region of Politschka. After the annexation of the Sudetenland
Sudetenland
Sudetenland is the German name used in English in the first half of the 20th century for the northern, southwest and western regions of Czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by ethnic Germans, specifically the border areas of Bohemia, Moravia, and those parts of Silesia being within Czechoslovakia.The...
by Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, it was integrated into the county of Zwittau.
In 1944, Oskar Schindler
Oskar Schindler
Oskar Schindler was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia. He is credited with saving over 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively.He is the subject of the...
relocated his Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik (German Enamelware Factory), and the associated prison camp of 1,200 Jewish forced labourers, from Kraków
Kraków
Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...
to a munitions factory acquired by him in Brněnec. The Jewish workforce thus escaped transport to the extermination camps
Extermination camps in the Holocaust
Extermination camps were camps built by Nazi Germany during the Second World War to systematically kill millions by gassing and extreme work under starvation conditions. While there were victims from many groups, Jews were the main targets. This genocide of the Jewish people was the Third...
and was liberated on 10 May 1945, after the factory had been fully operational for seven months.
- See also list of subcamps of Gross Rosen.
There are 800 employment positions in Brněnec today.
Districts
The municipality of Brněnec is composed of the following districts (GermanGerman language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
names in parentheses):
- Brněnec (Brünnlitz)
- Chrastová Lhota (Ölhütten)
- Moravská Chrastová (Mährisch Chrostau)
- Podlesí (Unterwald)