Český svaz protifašistických bojovníků – ústřední výbor, Praha
- Czech Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters - Central Committee, Prague / NAD 1786
Extent and Medium
Textual material
353,65 linear meters
Creator(s)
- Czech Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters - Central Committee, Prague; Czechoslovak Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters; Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters
Biographical History
After the Second World War, several resistance organizations emerged in the Czech lands. The Czechoslovak Legionary Union, an organization of participants in World War I, founded in 1921, was the first to be restored. Resistance fighters returning from concentration camps, prisons and penitentiaries, from the Eastern and Western fronts or from emigration, were organized in the Union of Liberated Political Prisoners and the Association of Czechoslovak Foreign Soldiers of the Second Resistance. Those involved in the domestic resistance were concentrated in the Union of the National Revolution. In 1948, the individual organizations in the Czech lands merged into the Union of Freedom Fighters, and in 1951 a national organization of resistance fighters was established - the Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters. The mission of the organization was, among other things, to develop the traditions of the struggle against fascism, to spread the historical truth about this struggle, to expose the contemporary forms of fascism, to take care of the memorial sites, to publish and distribute anti-fascist literature, etc.
Archival History
The documents were taken over by the State Central Archives in Prague (now the National Archives) from the Czechoslovak Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters (ČSSPB) between 1980 and 1981, and then in 1992 and 1994 from the Czech Union of Freedom Fighters (ČSBS). Some of the documents, especially those relating to the competition of commemorative, documentary and historical works, were managed by the publicity department of the ČSPB. In September 1990, the documents of this department were transferred to the Historical Institute of the Army of the Czech Republic (HÚ AČR), the Department of the Resistance Memorial, where they were to become part of the sources that would enable the creation of a comprehensive synthesis devoted to the history of the domestic anti-Nazi resistance. From there they were handed over to the State Central Archives in 1996.
Scope and Content
The documents of the Czech Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters (ČSPB) are an important source concerning the resistance and resistance of Czechs and Slovaks in 1914-1918, domestic and foreign anti-Nazi resistance in 1939-1945, including Jewish resistance, and the victims of racial and political persecution, prisoners of Nazi prisons and concentration camps. The fonds has a complicated internal structure, consisting of several separate parts: registry; membership records; documents of the publicity department of the Central Committee of the ČSPB; a memorial, documentary and historical competition; clippings; photo archive. The fonds contains a number of documents from the period before 1969. An important part of the fonds is the membership records of the ČSPB, the Czechoslovak Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters (ČSPB), the Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters (SPB) and their predecessors. It contains applications of participants of the First and Second Czechoslovak Resistance, including applications of resistance fighters and victims of racial and political persecution of Jewish nationality. There are also minutes of meetings of the central bodies of the Union, and documentation concerning pseudo-medical experiments in concentration camps. Much of this material dates from the period after 1969.The biographies included in the application forms also include information relating to the members' activities before 1939. The fonds also contains fragments of several personal fonds of Holocaust victims. An important part of the fonds is a competition of historical, commemorative and documentary works. The competition may also contain memoirs of Czechoslovak Legionnaires of Jewish origin; these works are traceable in the fonds by the name of the author. The competition also included a commemorative work by the resistance fighter of Jewish origin, Solomon Ickovič, entitled Meetings with Death, competition work No. 1672, a memoir from 1937-1944. The author, a Czechoslovak communist of Jewish nationality from Carpathian Ruthenia, was a member of the International Brigades in Spain, survived French internment, and then joined the anti-Nazi resistance in France.
System of Arrangement
The fonds is not organized, being only divided into the following sections: registry; membership records; documents of the publicity department of the Czech Union of Anti-Fascist Fighters (a competition of historical, commemorative and documentary works; clippings; photo archive).
Conditions Governing Access
Accessible
Finding Aids
There are no finding aids.
Process Info
This archival description was created by the Jewish Museum in Prague in the framework of the cooperation between EHRI and the Yerusha project.
Subjects
- International Brigades in Spain
- memoir
- commemorative and documentary works
- Holocaust victims
- photo archive
- clippings
- concentration camps
- prisoners of Nazi prisons
- political persecution
- anti-Nazi resistance