page_title: Bielsko-Biała
section_title: Modern times
hierarchical_section_title: Bielsko-Biała / Modern times
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Fasada ratusza w Bielsku-Białej. Ratusz w Bielsku-Białej
context_page_description: Bielsko-Biała is a city in southern Poland with a population of approximately 170,663 as of 2019 and an area of 124.5 sq km. The city is a centre of the Bielsko Urban Agglomeration with 325,000 inhabitants and is an industrial, transport, and tourism hub of the Bielsko Industrial Region. Located north of the Beskid Mountains, Bielsko-Biała is composed of two former cities on opposite banks of the Biała River, Silesian Bielsko and Lesser Poland's Biała, which merged in 1951. Between 1975-1998, it was the seat of the Bielsko Voivodeship. Currently, the city lies witihn the Silesian Voivodeship.
context_section_description: With the dissolution of Austria–Hungary in 1918 according to the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, both cities became part of the reconstituted Polish state, although the majority of the population was German, forming a German language island. 
  Some ethnic German citizens formed an anti-Polish, anti-Jewish Jungdeutsche Partei, supported financially by the Foreign Ministry of Nazi Germany. Its members smuggled weapons and waged a campaign of intimidating other German residents to leave for Germany. A considerable number of young Germans joined  this Party during the mid-1930s. 
  During World War II Bielsko-Biała was annexed by Nazi Germany. Many of its Jewish Jewish residents were murdered at the nearby Auschwitz extermination camp. After the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, the remaining German population fled westward or were expelled. The town was polonized and gradually repopulated by Polish settlers.
  Several widely known Holocaust survivors from Bielsko-Biała were Roman Frister, Gerda Weissmann Klein and Kitty Hart-Moxon, all of whom wrote accounts of their experiences during World War II.
  The combined city of Bielsko-Biała was created administratively on 1 January 1951 when the two cities of Bielsko, and Biała (known until 1951 as Biała Krakowska), were unified.
caption: Town Hall
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-LX100", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2018:11:07 09:14:07", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "636", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "31220", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8940", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1600", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Standard Output Sensitivity", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2018:11:07 09:14:07", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2018:11:07 09:14:07", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "49/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "109/10", "EXIF SubSecTime": "097", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "097", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "097", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4272", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2856", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "29850", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "24", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}