Laa an der Thaya

Laa an der Thaya
Laa an der Thaya
	Town hall
Postal code	2136
Area code	02522
Website	www.laa.at

Laa an der Thaya is a town in the Mistelbach District of Lower Austria in Austria, near the Czech border. The population in 2016 was 6,224.

Geography

The town is located in the northern

South Moravia. The municipal area includes the cadastral communities

of Hanfthal, Kottingneusiedl, Pernhofen, Ungerndorf, and Wulzeshofen.

History

A settlement at a

St Vitus parish church was begun about 1240, it is today one of the largest preserved Romanesque

church buildings in Lower Austria.

Laa's

Rudolph I of Germany after his victory in the Battle on the Marchfeld. Nevertheless, the town's significance decreased over the following decades, it was devastated by the troops of Margrave Jobst of Moravia in 1407 and again in 1426 by Hussite forces. According to legend, the later Pope Pius II (Enea Silvio Piccolomini) worked as a priest at the Laa parish church from 1442, actually he served as papal legate to the Imperial Diet and counsellor of Emperor Frederick III. To improve Laa's economy, the citizens were granted the privilege of brewing

in 1454.

During the Thirty Years' War, the town was first occupied by Bohemian troops until the 1620 Battle of White Mountain, later by Swedish forces, who left Laa in a desolate condition. It remained a sedate county town when Napoleon marched through in 1809 during the War of the Fifth Coalition. However, Laa's development was promoted by the opening of a railway connection to Austria's capital Vienna in 1869, with a branch line of the Eastern Railway which led on to Hevlín and Brno (Brünn) in Moravia. Another branch via Pulkau to Zellerndorf which connected to the Vienna-Znojmo railway line opened in 1873.

Laa again became a border town after World War I with the establishment of the First Czechoslovak Republic; at the end of World War II it bordered the "Iron Curtain" dividing Europe. In June 2005, about 250 townspeople and 80 visitors from the US, Israel and Europe with historical family links to former Jewish citizens of Laa an der Thaya assembled with Mayor Fass to dedicate a memorial to the members of 33 Jewish families of Laa murdered by the SS in Auschwitz. This memorial was only the second official memorial dedicated to the memory of Austria's Jews.

Politics

Since October 7, 2015 Brigitte Ribisch is the mayor of Laa an der Thaya. Seats in the municipal assembly (Gemeinderat) as of 2015^[update] elections: