Matriky židovských náboženských obcí v českých krajích

  • Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths of Jewish Communities in the Czech Lands
  • HBMa
  • NAD 167
Identifier
167
Language of Description
English
Dates
1784 - 1949
Level of Description
Fonds
Languages
  • Czech
  • German
Scripts
  • Latin
Source
EHRI

Web Source

http://www.badatelna.eu/fond/1073/, digitised death certificates from Terezín are available at http://www.holocaust.cz/cz/documents

Extent and Medium

The collection consists of 93,8 linear meters of documents, all processed and inventoried.

Biographical History

Since the Patent of Emperor Joseph II in 1784 the Jewish communities in the Bohemian lands were obliged to lead civil registries. According to Article 6 of the Patent the Jewish registrars (the rabbies) were obliged to keep the same kind of registers as catholic priests did, but certain modifications were permitted as the Jewish faith required. After the Munich Agreement and the annexation of the Czechoslovak border region in 1938, the Gestapo began to collect all available registers of births, marriages and deaths of the Jewish communities and the new established Gestapoleitstelle (Regional Headquarters) Reichenberg drew up card files with Jews. Between 1939 and 1944, there were no registers of births, marriages and deaths of the Jewish Communities in the Sudetengau. After the war the missing data of the Holocaust victims were reversed in the registers of births, marriages and deaths of the Jewish Communities. In the Protectorate Bohemia and Moravia 1942 on the command of the Reichsprotektor all registers of births, marriages and deaths of the Jewish communities had to be handed over in original to the "Zentralamt zur Regelung der Judenfrage" (Central Office for Resolving the Jewish Question). Copies of the Jewish registries were sent to the castle of Český Šterberk in 1943. In March 1945, the original documents in Prague were destroyed at the behest of the Gestapo, but the copies in Český Šternberk stayed untouched. After the war the copies of the registers of births, marriages and deaths of the Jewish Communities were declared by the Czechoslovak Ministry of the Interior as originals.

Archival History

The keeping of the registers of births, marriages and deaths of the Jewish communities in Czechoslovakia of individual congregations was ended by the law of the 7th of December 1949. A uniform state register was instituted instead. On the basis of this law the Prague Jewish Community handed over their collection of registers of births, marriages and deaths of the Jewish communities to the Okresní Nàrodní výbor (ONV) in Prague 1. The National Archive in Prague manages the collection of Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths of the Jewish Communities since 1983.

Scope and Content

Holocaust-related material was categorised into classes as follows: death certificates from Theresienstadt (1941-12-03 to 1943-09-05), recorded deaths in Theresienstadt (in alphabetical order by the names A - Z) and alphabetical card index lists of persons. Requests for additional entries to the registers of death in Theresienstadt were prepared on the basis of death certificates and kept in two series. The first series in alphabetic order consists of actual death records in the register of deaths of Theresienstadt. The second series is arranged numerically and consists of the applications for registration of deaths assigned to the Jewish Community in Prague, the ONV (Okresní národní vybor) Litoměřice and the Episcopal consistory ibid. All of these applications are actually duplicates and date from 1948. The second large group of registry documents ( 45 boxes) are declarations of death of those who did not survive deportation and their fate was not known, issued in the period 1946-1948/1950 by District Court competent for the last residence of the Holocaust victims. Court decisions should be entered in the registers of deaths, but to make such a large number of additional registration was not possible for a single archivist in charge of the Jewish registers. These were digitised directly in the National Archives and will be published on the National Archives website. Another group of documents consists of medical examinations and death certificates for Prague (1942-1949), autopsies and death certificates for Prague outside of Prague (1944-1949), autopsies and deaths certifications for Prague for Teplice (A - Z) and birth reports from Teplice (A - Z). At the time the collection of registers of births, marriages or death (or Jewish registers only) were transferred to the administration of the Jewish community in Prague, which was based on reports from communities outside of Prague. The Jewish community in Teplice (Teplitz) had their own civil registration separately. Similar reports completed by civil registers were also made in Prague, Trutnov (Trautenau), Ústí nad Labem (Aussig) and Děčín (Tetschen). Another major group consists of closed (by name, A - Z) a pending application for change of name, as well as documents relating to divorce, adoption, guardianship, etc. and a collection of master documents for the reconstruction of entries ​​(A - Z). After sorting each group of documents has been assigned a inventory number. The collection closes the original lists of registers from previous institutions and the several master documents.

Finding Aids

Archivist Note

Based on online inventory http://www.badatelna.eu/fond/1073/, entry selected and written by AA

Rules and Conventions

EHRI Guidelines for Description v.1.0

Dates of Descriptions

15th of October 2014