Zebrzydowice, Silesian Voivodeship

Zebrzydowice is a village and the seat of Gmina Zebrzydowice in Cieszyn County, Silesian Voivodeship, southern Poland, near the border with the Czech Republic. It lies in the historical region of Cieszyn Silesia on the Piotrowka River and has a rail border crossing. The village is first mentioned around 1305 in a Latin document of the Diocese of Wroclaw, as part of the late thirteenth century settlement campaign in what became Upper Silesia. It belonged to the Duchy of Teschen, which became a fief of the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1327, and later to the Habsburg monarchy. Its Catholic parish, first recorded in 1335, is one of the oldest in the region; the church was taken over by Lutherans after the 1540s and returned to the Catholic Church on 16 April 1654. After Cieszyn Silesia was divided in 1920 the village became part of Poland, was annexed by Nazi Germany in the Second World War and was restored to Poland afterwards.