Bílá Voda is a village and municipality (obec

Obec

Obec is the Czech and Slovak word for a municipality . The literal meaning of the word is "commune" or "community". It is the smallest administrative unit that is governed by elected representatives. Cities are also municipalities...

) in Jeseník District

Jeseník District

Jeseník District is a district in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. Its seat is the town Jeseník.The area called Jeseníky region is in the most northern bulge of Silesia and Moravia. It is closed by frontier with Poland that passes westward through Rychleby Hills and crosses the Nysa...

 in the Olomouc Region

Olomouc Region

Olomouc Region is an administrative unit of the Czech Republic, located in the north-western and central part of its historical region of Moravia and in a small part of the historical region of Silesia . It is named for its capital Olomouc.-External links:* *...

 of the Czech Republic. The municipality covers an area of 14.98 square kilometres (5.8 sq mi), and has a population of 282 (as at 2 October 2006).

Bílá Voda lies on the northern slope of the Golden Mountains range of the Eastern

Eastern Sudetes

The Eastern Sudetes are the Eastern part of Sudetes mountains on the border of the Czech Republic and Poland. They stretch from Brama Morawska in the east to Nysa Kłodzka in the west.Eastern Sudetes comprise of the number of mountain ranges, including:...

 Sudetes, at the westernmost point of the Czech Silesia

Czech Silesia

Czech Silesia is an unofficial name of one of the three Czech lands and a section of the Silesian historical region. It is located in the north-east of the Czech Republic, predominantly in the Moravian-Silesian Region, with a section in the northern Olomouc Region...

 region, close to the Polish

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 border at Złoty Stok. It is located approximately 31 kilometres (19 mi) north-west of Jeseník

Jeseník

Jeseník , Frývaldov until 1948 is a city and a district in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic.- Districts :* Bukovice * Dětřichov * Jeseník * Lázně Jeseník - History :...

, 98 km (61 mi) north of Olomouc

Olomouc

Olomouc is a city in Moravia, in the east of the Czech Republic. The city is located on the Morava river and is the ecclesiastical metropolis and historical capital city of Moravia. Nowadays, it is an administrative centre of the Olomouc Region and sixth largest city in the Czech Republic...

, and 182 km (113 mi) east of 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...

. In the east it borders the municipal area of Javorník

Javorník (Jeseník District)

Javorník or Javorník u Jeseníku or Javorník ve Slezsku, , is a town in the Jeseník District of the Olomouc Region, Javorník Hook, Czech Republic. It has about 2,900 inhabitants.-Early history:...

. The village is named after the Bílá Voda mountain stream, a tributary of the Nysa Kłodzka river and part of the Oder

Oder

The Oder is a river in Central Europe. It rises in the Czech Republic and flows through western Poland, later forming of the border between Poland and Germany, part of the Oder-Neisse line...

 basin. About two thirds of the municipal area are covered with forests.

The settlement in the Silesian Duchy of Nysa

Duchy of Nysa

The Duchy of Nysa , or Duchy of Neisse was one of the duchies of Silesia with its capital at Nysa in Lower Silesia. Alongside the Duchy of Siewierz, it was the only ecclesiastical duchy in the Silesian region, as it was ruled by a bishop of the Catholic Church...

 was probably founded with Bílá Voda Castle in the 13th century. From 1507 onwards the Prince-Bishop

Prince-Bishop

A Prince-Bishop is a bishop who is a territorial Prince of the Church on account of one or more secular principalities, usually pre-existent titles of nobility held concurrently with their inherent clerical office...

s of Wrocław had the castle rebuilt as a summer palace. Weißwasser was first mentioned in a 1532 deed. Jakob Ernst von Liechtenstein-Kastelkorn, the later Bishop of Olomouc

Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Olomouc

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Olomouc is an archdiocese of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church in the Czech Republic. Not much is known about the beginnings of the Diocese of Olomouc...

, established a Piarist

Piarists

The Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools or, in short, Piarists , is the name of the oldest Catholic educational order also known as the Scolopi, Escolapios or Poor Clerics of the Mother of God...

 college on his inherited Bílá Voda estates in 1723, a response to the 1707 Convention of Altranstädt

Treaty of Altranstädt (1707)

The Treaty or Convention of Altranstädt was signed between Charles XII of Sweden and Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor on 31 August 1707. It settled the rights of Protestants in Silesia.-Historical context:...

 granting religious freedom to the Silesian Protestants

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

. When the Prussian

Kingdom of Prussia

The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

 king Frederick the Great conquered most of Silesia in 1742, the Duchy of Nysa was divided and Bílá Voda became a border town of Austrian Silesia

Austrian Silesia

Austrian Silesia , officially the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia was an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Bohemia and the Austrian Empire, from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...

, after World War I part of the newly established state of Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

. In 1930, Bílá Voda had a population of 1104, of which 941 were German

German 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....

-speaking. Upon the 1938 Munich Agreement

Munich Agreement

The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...

 the area was annexed by Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 and incorporated into the Reichsgau

Reichsgau

A Reichsgau was an administrative subdivision created in a number of the areas annexed to Nazi Germany between 1938 and 1945...

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...

. After 1945 the German population was expelled

Expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia

The expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II was part of a series of evacuations and expulsions of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during and after World War II....

 according to the Beneš decrees

Beneš decrees

Decrees of the President of the Republic , more commonly known as the Beneš decrees, were a series of laws that were drafted by the Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in the absence of the Czechoslovak parliament during the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in World War II and issued by President...

.