The Second World War was a time of great tragedies for most of Cieszyn’s inhabitants, particularly the Jewish community, which, of course, disappeared. The town’s population had shrunk to 16,500 in 1946. As a town, Cieszyn survived the war without suffering serious material damage. The only large structure to be destroyed by the occupying forces was the bridge below the castle. But in addition, many municipal buildings and schools in which German forces were quartered were damaged. Normal life returned to Cieszyn relatively swiftly; the last utility to be reactivated was the water supply – in September 1945. Returning shopkeepers and factory owners started their businesses up again. Schools and government offices were reopened and Cieszyn Museum staged its first exhibition in the autumn of 1945.
      Along with the rebuilding a new reality entered the life of the town. After the Germans withdrew from Cieszyn at the beginning of May 1945 the Communist authorities – accompanied by the Red Army – arrived to take control of the town, with Jan Smotrycki as president. From that moment on the National Town Council (Miejska Rada Narodowa) governed Cieszyn, with the Town Secretary and later the Town Commander in the role of chief executive. These political organs were nominally elected but were actually nominated by the political parties, initially by the PPR (The Polish Workers’ Party) and the PPS (The Polish Socialist Party), later by the PZPR (the Polish United Workers’ Party). The county offices of the UBP (Public Security Service), which waged a bloody war with the Polish armed resistance movement throughout the whole of Cieszyn Silesia, were established in Cieszyn. The activities of non-Communist political parties and associations were first curtailed and then banned outright, which was hard for the active local community to stomach.
      Several pre-war organisations managed to survive, however. Notably Macierz Szkolna (an organisation active in promoting Polish language, culture and education – translator’s note), under its new name of Macierz Ziemi Cieszyńskiej, had to limit its activities to cultivating the memory of the region’s past, now artificially called the “Cieszyn Region”. Anyone opposing the new order could expect severe repressive measures. Public figures who had commanded respect before the war were removed from public life, as were Catholic and Lutheran clergymen. Most property owned by religious communities or religious associations was seized. The hospital run by the Order of the Grey Nuns of St. Elizabeth became state owned, and in 1949 was turned into a hospital for the treatment of pulmonary disorders. The nuns of the Order of St. Charles Borromeo had to close their girls’ school – highly thought of before the war by people of all denominations. The hospice which was established in its stead was swiftly taken over by the pro-Communist Catholic Association Caritas. The People’s Militia was housed in the Lutheran girls’ school on Plac Wolności.
      Directly after the war businesses were reopened by their former owners. But those whose owners did not return (referring chiefly to German and Jewish owners) were reopened as state-run concerns. Formerly German-owned property was nationalised immediately, as were the larger works such as the Machine Factory and Cast-Iron and Metal Foundry, the Paint and Varnish Factory, the Olza Wafer Factory and Delta Confectionary Factory (the latter two were later amalgamated to become the Olza Confectionary Works). The pre-war printers The Heritage of the Blessed Jan Sarkander was reopened by its employees as the Cieszyn Publishing and Printing House continuing Cieszyn’s pre-war printing traditions. Other large factories, which in subsequent years influenced the economic life of the town and life in general, were established as successive economic plans were executed. During the Three Year Plan of 1947-49 the M-2 Electric Machine Factory was enlarged (formally the Rohn-Zieliński Electromechanical Works) and extended under the Six Year Plan to become the Celma Electric Machine Factory – the largest such works in Communist times. The Cefana Cieszyn Tool Factory, which was merged with Celma in 1972, was developed similarly. The Termika Electrical Heating Equipment Factory was founded in 1951 as an amalgamation of the pre-war Sibreco Steam Iron Manufacturer and Bilowicki’s small kitchen equipment works. In the 1960s the FACH Cieszyn Cooling Equipment Manufacturer was built and at the same time the Cieszyn Paint and Varnish Manufacturer was moved to a new location in Marklowice. The Cieszyn works in the main manufactured their products for the Polish market, even though local people had difficulty buying them, while a considerable quantity of the goods was produced for the export market.
      At the end of the war retails outlets in the traditionally commercially-oriented Cieszyn were in private hands. In 1949 the state-owned Cieszyn Retail Trade company was founded, which, along with the Konsum Robotniczy Consumer Co-operative took over all the shops in the town after they had been nationalised, following a so-called “trade war”.
      Major demographic changes took place among the inhabitants of Cieszyn. German nationals who had most actively supported the occupying forces during the war either left of their own accord or were forced to leave. Cieszyn had become ethnically homogenous for the first time in its history. Although Krasna, Mnisztwo, Boguszowice and Marklowice were all incorporated into the town, the town’s population did not increase dramatically; in 1950 it had a population of 19,500 thousand and in 1970 – 23,000. Large housing estates began to spring up on the outskirts of the town, like the ZOR Estate on Mały Jaworowy, where building work was begun in 1948. Later others were built by the larger local factories and from 1958 by the Cieszynianka and Olza Housing Co-peratives which were amalgamated in 1964.
      After the Second World War much was done to make education accessible to all social groups. This was made easier by the fact that during Cieszyn’s years as part of Austria every child was guaranteed the minimum of a primary education, and almost all the schools had their own buildings dating from the Austrian – or interwar – periods. After the reform of 1961 all primary schools were transformed into 8-year ones. Two new school were built; in 1957 on ul. Chopina and in 1960 on the ZOR Estate. The number of secondary schools increased; the first were the State Vocational Secondary School for Working People, the State Vocational Women’s School and the Co-operative High School, which opened their doors on 1 September 1946. Later other institutions were opened. In June 1969 3,616 people were attending the 17 secondary schools in Cieszyn, consisting of grammar schools, colleges, the medical grammar school, as well as grammar schools and vocational colleges for working people. Cieszyn remained the educational centre for the entire region, despite the fact that secondary schools were opened in other Cieszyn Silesian towns after the War. The Agricultural College on ul. Kraszewskiego was re-opened in 1945 and functioned until 1950, when it was transferred to Olsztyn, and the Teacher Training College was founded in 1960 as an F.E. college. Cieszyn regained an institution of higher education in 1971 when the Cieszyn Affiliate of the University of Silesia was established.
      Cieszyn’s Museum never ceased to function, while the Polish Theatre was established in October 1945. However in December of that year it was combined with the theatre in Bielsko as the Cieszyn-Bielsko Polish Theatre. This awkward marriage (as far as Cieszyn people were concerned) ended in 1961. Since then the Cieszyn theatre has played host to repertory companies and other cultural events.
      Cieszyn continued to draw its water from the old water supply in Oldřichovice in Czechoslovakia up until the end of 1968. The RWPG economic plans stipulated the joint solution of problems by Cieszyn and Český Těąín, and the two towns were linked by an official friendship agreement. In practice this could only be observed at a few official events during the year and in fact the Polish-Czech border was one of the most impenetrable in post-war Europe. In May 1980 Cieszyn was awarded with the Krzyż Komandorski Orderu Odrodzenia Polski (the Commander’s Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland) by the Communist authorities. In the summer of the same year, as everywhere in Poland, numerous committees of the Solidarity Trade Union sprang up. The people of Cieszyn attempted once again to take charge of their own lives and their town, but the State of Martial Law announced in December 1981 postponed those hopes for several more years. In 1989 Communism came to an end and the residents on both sides of the border were united in their protests against the building of a power station in Stonava in Czechoslovakia. Numerous meetings and demonstrations in support of the protest took place. In the summer of 1989 the Citizens’ Committee was founded in Cieszyn, which in the next year in an alliance with Solidarity, the Catholic Intelligentsia Club and the Polish Lutheran Association founded the Solidarity Citizens’ Club which gained 26 seats out of 30 in local elections in May 1990, with Dr Jan Olbrycht elected mayor.
      The town’s authorities were met with the thankless task of normalising the running of the town, dealing with the owners of property illegally seized during the Communist years, the communalisation of property, and finally beginning new building programmes, including the sewage works and the adaptation of the former mint to house the Cieszyn Historical Library. Continuing the great tradition of community activism local people achieved much by their own efforts, e.g. founding independent schools of various types, for example the Catholic and Lutheran grammar and middle schools.

J. Spyra, transl. French