Jablonec Nad Nisou - History

History

The village of Jablonec was founded in the 14th century; the first written document dates back to 1356. The town's name means "place with apple trees". In August 1496, the village was burnt to the ground by troops of the rebelling Lusatian Towns Group in the war between them and King George of Podebrady of Bohemia. In the 18th century, the first artificial jewellery was produced and the first exporter, J. F. Schwan, spread its name throughout Europe. The village of Gablonz was promoted to a township by Emperor Francis II on April 21, 1808 and to a town by Emperor Francis Joseph on March 28, 1866.

In the 19th century the town became prosperous and wealthy. Between 1870-1871 the Franco-Prussian War pushed the most dangerous competition in glass and artificial jewellery manufacturing out of business, as Gablonz traders seized the foreign markets. A steady flow of glass and artificial jewellery products of an incredibly wide range flowed out of the town for the next 60 years. Prosperity and wealth walked hand in hand with demographic advances; Jablonec's appearance was changing dramatically. A deep decline of the glass and jewellery industry followed Black Friday in 1929 and the crisis of the 1930s with its unemployment and hunger led to the great support of Nazis. In October 1938, Gablonz, was occupied by Hitler's German Reich after the Munich Agreement, as a part of so-called Sudetenland. Before 1938, Gablonz had majority of 86% of German inhabitants, and rest of Czechs, Jews and many other groups. In Autumn 1938, most of the Jews, Czechs and anti-Nazi Germans fled to the rests of Czechoslovakia because of Nazi terror. Beautiful Jewish synagogue was burned down. In May 1945, the town was liberated by the underground anti-Nazi groups together with some 700 French and Italian soldiers who were captives in Gablonz's camps.

Between 1945 and 1949, most of the Germans were expelled under the terms of Beneš decrees. However, few thousand Germans who were active in struggle against Nazi rule, participants in Czech-German marriages and Germans with special permits were allowed to stay home in Gablonz. Despite assimilation and emigration to Germany in 1968, the German minority in Gablonz still exists (some 1,000-2,000 people). With the exception of original Czech and Jew Gablonzers who returned to the area, many of the new Czech inhabitants of Gablonz came from nearby Czech towns and villages. Gablonz has also important Greek minority, founded by Communist refugees of Greek Civil War in 1949, and minority of Roma. Some of expelled Germans from Gablonz and its surroundings founded the quarter of Neugablonz near Kaufbeuren in Bavaria and group in Enns in Upper Austria after 1950. Both towns of Kaufbeuren-Neugablonz and Jablonec signed official partnership in 2008.