Silesia (Polish: Śląsk, Czech: Slezsko) is a historical landscape, which today is mainly located in the extreme southwest of Poland, but in parts also on the territory of Germany and the Czech Republic. By far the most significant river is the Oder. To the south, Silesia is bordered mainly by the Sudeten and Beskid mountain ranges. Today, almost 8 million people live in Silesia. The largest cities in the region are Wrocław, Opole and Katowice. Before 1945, most of the region was part of Prussia for two hundred years, and before the Silesian Wars (from 1740) it was part of the Habsburg Empire for almost as many years. Silesia is classified into Upper and Lower Silesia.
The territory of the County of Glatz roughly coincides with the present-day Polish powiat of Kłodzki, also called ziemia kłodzka (Glatzer Land). Part of the Bohemian dominion since 1348, the County of Glatz fell to Prussia in 1742 during the First Silesian War and was subordinated to the Province of Silesia in 1818.
Králíky (German: Grulich) is a town in the Czech region Pardubický kraj (German: Pardubice region) in the middle of the country, about 200 km east of Prague. Králíky has just about 4,100 inhabitants.
The Waldenburg Mountains are located in the Central Sudetes in southwestern Poland, west and southwest of the city of Waldenburg (Polish: Wałbrzych) in Lower Silesia. Some southern parts of the Waldenburg Highlands are also located in the Czech Republic.
However, the Waldenburg nativity scene is interesting not only because of its region-specific character, but above all because of its very exciting and, fortunately, well-documented fate. The piece has an extraordinary migration history, during which it traveled twice across the "big pond" and, after almost 80 years, returned to Germany. "According to my information," wrote the owner, who ended up living in the USA, when he donated the nativity set to HAUS SCHLESIEN, "it originally came from Waldenburg, a small town located in the hilly countryside 80 km southwest of
Wrocław is the capital of the Lower Silesia Voivodeship (Polish: dolnośląskie), which is located in western Poland. It is inhabited by nearly 640,000 people and is the fourth largest city in Poland. Wroclaw is located on the Odra River.
The donor's family emigrated to the USA in 1935, when the first "clouds of smoke on the horizon signalling war" began to appear. The nativity set was so important to the family that it traveled with them in their luggage to Chicago, from where it later made its way to Los Angeles:






