After the liberation of Banat from Ottoman rule (1718), the "Swabian" Germans, Hungarians, Bulgarians and Slovaks began to come to this sparsely populated region, occupying the plain of northern and western Banat. The hills north of the river Nera have been populated since the 18th century with Germans from Alsace, Tyrol and Styria and with Croats from Crasov. The southern part and the most mountainous part of Banat, located between the Nera and the Danube, remained an almost deserted area until the beginning of the 19th century.

   The first wave of Czech settlers was caused by the timber entrepreneur Magyarly from Oraviţa, who needed workers to cut down the forests in the Locva mountains. Several hundred people were attracted here with various promises: plots of land, exemption from military service, exemption from taxes, etc. Thus was born in 1823 the first Czech settlement in Banat, St. Elizabeth (Sankt Elisabeth, Elisabethfeld, Svatá Alžběta), and a year later appeared in the immediate vicinity the village St. Helena (Sankt Helene, Svatá Helena).