Records of the Orphans’ Court of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County, 1876-1950

The records of the Orphans’ Court from 1944 is one of the key sources pertaining to the nationalization of the wealth of Hungarian Jews in spring-summer of 1944. According to decree no. 230.000/1944 of the Ministry of the Interior on April 10 1944 on the handling of the assets of “absent” Jews (that is, those who were promptly taken to the ghettos and collection camps after April 16 and therefore could not report their property as prescribed in governmental decree no. 1600/1944 issued on the same day) fell on the Orphans’ Courts of the counties and cities. They were entitled to appoint public trustees and guardians to take over and handle all the property of the Jews. Soon after, government officials realized the task was far beyond the ability of the Orphans’ Courts. At the beginning of May, Financial Directorates were made responsible for the appropriation, inventorying and safekeeping of Jewish property. Post-1944 records in the collection contain plenty of information pertaining to the inheritance of citizens murdered during the Holocaust. In 1947, the Hungarian state initiated legal procedures in order to identify heirless or unclaimed property of people who fell victim to Fascist persecution, overwhelmingly Jews. The Orphans’ Courts were the key administrative bodies in this process. Relevant records of the Orphans’ Court of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County from this period include declarations of death introduced by relatives at the local District Courts. According to Governmental Decree no. 4700 of 1945, the procedure was announced in the state bulletin Magyar Közlöny and after 60 days the given person was declared legally dead, unless the authorities received evidence that he or she was alive. Besides, there are two other types of files in this part of the collection:

1. inventories of inheritance, which consist of the names of successors, the place and dare of declaration of death. The inventories were taken in the presence of one of the successors
2. guardianship cases: in the absence of the owner or any legal successors, the property was declared abandoned and placed under the guardianship of state-appointed individuals.

The records of the Orphans’ Court of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun County were arranged into the following provenance subgroups (állag): IV. 410. a. Minutes of council meetings, IV. 410. b. Presidential records, IV. 410. c. General records, IV. 410. d. Records of Orphans’ Prosecutor–Árvaügyészi iratok, IV. 410. e. Records of Orphans’ Cashier–Árvapénztári iratok. Within these groups, the files are arranged chronologically, the number of files re-started each year. Certain cases from the years 1938-1944 are handled separately and arranged in alphabetical order.