Huvudarkivet
- Central Archive
- Huvudserien
Web Source
Extent and Medium
73.4 linear meters.
Textual records.
Biographical History
The Jewish Community of Stockholm traces its origins to 1775, when the Mecklenburgian engraver and merchant Aaron Isaac and his family settled in Stockholm after receiving the sanction of king Gustav III to do so. His resettlement was soon followed by further friends and family, leading to the establishment of the Jewish Community. The community gradually grew throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, parallel to liberalisations of the legal standing of Jews in Sweden during the same period. By 1815, it numbered 481 members. By the onset of World War II, the Jewish community of Stockholm was the largest community in the country, accounting for more than half of Sweden’s Jewish population. Following the beginning of Jewish persecution in Germany in the 1930s, the Jewish community of Stockholm maintained both domestic and international cooperation with other Jewish organisations for the purposes of aiding the victims of Nazi terror.
The Central Archive contains the documents of the Jewish Community's Executive Board (Församlingsföreståndarna), the Congregation Council (Församlingsfullmäktige), as well as the office's documents regarding finances, membership fees and other issues, personnel, properties, etc.
Included are also documents related to different boards and committees related to the Jewish Community's core activities, while the documents of other boards and sections have formed their own sub-archives. Several temporary committees have also been listed under the Central Archive.
Archival History
The archive of the Jewish Community of Stockholm was deposited with the National Archives in the mid-1980s, with several additional deliveries thereafter.
Scope and Content
The Central Archive (Huvudarkivet) includes the documents of the Jewish Community's governing council and the executive committee. The protocol series (A 1-3) includes scattered information about the Jewish Community of Stockholm's response to the situation of the Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe and decisions regarding various forms of aid activities.
The B4 a-series contains the Jewish Community of Stockholm's journals and includes, among other periodicals, its member bulletin, Församlingsblad för Mosaiska församlingen i Stockholm, which, from 1940, regularly reported on the situation of Jews in Europe and the Jewish Community's relief efforts. It also includes Exodus , a periodical that was aimed at providing useful information for Holocaust refugees and survivors in Sweden, after the war.
The series D2a contains five volumes of alphabetically arranged index cards for the "1945 rescues" and later immigrated Jews (1945–1962). The index cards contain information about the individuals' names, birth year and place, nationality, children, spouse, date of becoming a Swedish citizen, residential addresses and dates, and the person's whereabouts in 1965. These cards have been digitized by US Holocaust Memorial Museum and can be accessed on site in the reading room of the museum's archive.
The correspondence series (E, Incoming documents) contains letters from individuals and organizations in Nazi Germany. These volumes include a large number of letters from Jews in Europe describing their desperate situation and inquiring about the possibilities of seeking refuge in Sweden. There is also correspondence with representatives of foreign governments, Jewish communities and organizations, and other relief organizations.
The F series (subject-related documents) also contains information about the Holocaust. For example, F1 c3 contains correspondence and documents regarding an attempt to save the historian Simon Dubnow, who was murdered in Latvia during the Holocaust. In the same volume, there are several protocols from the first meetings of the Swedish section of the World Jewish Congress during the autumn of 1944 and spring of 1945, discussing aid and rescue operations for Jews.
The series also includes volume F19:1 concerning Hungarian Jews (1944–1960). This volume contains correspondence from the congregation regarding individual Hungarian Jews in 1944 and copies of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs' memos, including Raoul Wallenberg's reports and correspondence. In two volumes with the signature F21, there are documents concerning the Latvian-Jewish businessman and activist Gilel Storch and his efforts to try to save Jews during the Holocaust, as well as organizing aid shipments to Jews in concentration camps in Germany towards the end of the war.
Rules and Conventions
EHRI Guidelines for Description v.1.0