Court of the First Instance in Lipsko on Vistula Sąd Grodzki w Lipsku nad Wisłą (Sygn.1053)

This collection contain selected so-called “Zg.” files i.e. cases of declaring a person dead or issuing a death certificate. This includes those who perished during the Soviet and Nazi occupation: including those arrested either by Soviets or Germans, deported to the USSR or the Third Reich, sent to concentration camps, murdered in ghettos or in other places of extermination. The files (app. 5-20 pages) contain an application declaring a person dead, testimonies of two witnesses filled out on standard forms, and the correspondence and sentence of the court. The law determined who could be determined dead (The law: Article 14, section 1): “Those who perished while participating in military operations can be declared/found dead within a year after the end of the calendar year in which the military operations were over. The same refers to persons who perished while staying in the area under military operations if, according to the circumstances, it was likely that the missing was connected with these operations or under life threat”. That entry enabled one to lodge a file to find a person who was presumed dead no earlier than the beginning of 1946. The Courts of the First Instance resumed their activity after WWII on the basis of the resolution of the Polish President of February 1928: the Law of the structure of common courts.

The system of arrangement of the source repository has been preserved on the microfilm reels. Arranged in one series. 1. Personal files of victims. Organized by personal names of victims (Files are not organized alphabetically).