National Land Mortgage Bank, Department of Land Policy, 1911-1947

Collection description

Collection

Country:: Hungary

Holding institution:: National Archives of Hungary, National Archives

Holding institution (official language):: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár Országos Levéltára

Postal address:: Budapest, Bécsi Kapu tér 2-4., 1014

Phone number:: +36 1 225 2843

Web address:: http://mnl.gov.hu/

Email:: info@mnl.gov.hu

Reference number:: Z 135

Title:: National Land Mortgage Bank, Department of Land Policy, 1911-1947

Title (official language):: Országos Földhitelintézet Birtokpolitikai főosztály, 1911-1947

Creator/accumulator:: National Land Mortgage Bank

Date(s):: 1911/1947

Extent:: 17 boxes, 1236 fascicles, 6 volumes, 180.21 linear metres

Scope and content:: The collection holds 543 cases of Jewish-owned landholdings and forests confiscated by Act IV of 1939 and Act XV of 1942 (Second and Fourth Jewish Laws). The collection is divided into three major parts.

Part A, Ügyészi iratok (Records of the Prosecutor), holds various cases concerning Jewish landholdings, including mortgages, bank loans and liquidations. The cases cover the entire period from 1929 to 1946, but they are mostly from January-December 1944. Most of the cases were suspended, due to the deportation/internment of the owners.

Part B is entitled Perek (Lawsuits): it holds records of lawsuits and other legal procedures concerning Jewish landholdings and Act XV of 1942 on the Jewish-owned agricultural lands and forests, including the confiscation of Jewish-owned real estates, sales, repeal of sales, exemption cases, lawsuits of former employees of Jewish-owned estates who lost their jobs due to the expropriation, cases of lease holdings (haszonbérletek) as well as requests of Jewish owners after 1945 to gain back their properties.

Part C (miscellaneous legal records) includes technical files, accounts, and registries of lawsuits, cases of garnishes on the salaries of Jews and various other individual cases.

The Jewish-related parts of the collection comprise fascicles 849-916 (9.52 linear metres).

Archival history:: The collection was acquired by the Hungarian National Archives in the early 1950s.

Administrative/biographical history:: State expropriation of Jewish-owned lands and forests was one of the major stages of the economic deprivation of Jewish citizens by the Hungarian state between 1939 and 1944. The possibility of requisitioning Jewish-owned property was first made explicit in the Second Jewish Law (Act IV of 1939), which also restricted the rights of Jews to obtain landed property. According to Act XV of 1942 on Jewish-owned agricultural land and forests, also known as the Fourth Jewish Law, Jews were forced to hand over their landed property and any production facilities connected to them. The compensation offered was significantly less than the real value of the estates.

The National Land Mortgage Institute was one of the key institutions in this process, which was responsible for the management of the larger formerly Jewish-owned estates (that is, over 20 hold of land, in case of vineyards the limit was 5 holds) as well as supporting the non-Jewish beneficiaries of the land reforms with loans, equipment and other means.

The National Land Mortgage Institute was founded by Act XIV of 1936, which declared the fusion of the National Land Mortgage Institute of Petty Landowners and the National Alliance of Hungarian National Land Mortgage Banks. Its main task was the administration and organisation of land policy measures, including the parcelling of land (parcellázás) and providing the beneficiaries with financial and material support, most of all mortgages.

Access points: locations:: Hungary

Subject terms:: Agriculture; Antisemitism; Antisemitism--Antisemitic legislation; Land; Legal matters; Legal records; Plunder; Plunder--Aryanisation; Real estate

Finding aids:: A Hungarian-language collection-level description and database are available for the collection.

Yerusha Network member:: Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives

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