Horni Benesov : Czech Republic

Horni Benesov (formerly Benesov or Bennisch in German) is a town in the Moravian-Silesian Region of the Czech Republic with a population of approximately 2,500.

Benesov has a long mining tradition. It started as a mining settlement at the beginning of the 13th century. The town was officially founded in 1253, and the rights were confirmed in 1271 by the Czech King Premysl Ottokar II. It was destroyed by a Hungarian invasion in 1474 and then during the Thirty Years’ War. The mining was in decline since 17th century. During the 19th and 20th centuries, economic development of Benesov was driven mostly by textile industry.

Curiosities

The town gained some attention when it was learned that Fritz Kohn, the paternal grandfather of John Kerry, the U.S. Democratic Party’s candidate for United States President in the 2004 election, was from Horni Benesov. Kohn, who was born to a Jewish family here, changed his name to Kerry and converted to Catholicism before emigrating to the U.S. in 1905.

When Kohn was born, the town was populated almost entirely by Germans with only a very small Jewish and Czech communities, and was part of the Silesia region of Austria-Hungary. After World War I, the town was within the state of Czechoslovakia and in 1926 was given its present name. Today it is almost entirely Czech.