People’s Court, affiliated to the Central Committee of Jews in Poland

Collection description

Holding institution (official language):: Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. E. Ringelbluma

Title:: People’s Court, affiliated to the Central Committee of Jews in Poland

Title (official language):: Sąd Społeczny przy Centralnym Komitecie Żydów w Polsce

Creator/accumulator:: People’s Court of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland

Scope and content:: The collection comprises documents generated in the period 1945-1950 by the People’s Court (Sąd Społeczny), affiliated to the Central Committee of Jews in Poland (CKŻP). The collection is mainly composed of personal dossiers of individuals against whom proceedings were brought in the Court.

Organisational dossier:

- legal regulations (statute, ordinances and decrees, rules and regulations): unit 150.

- minutes of meetings of the court’s presidium and plenums, 1946-50: unit 153.

- breakdowns of proceedings pending: unit 147.

- materials related to the Public Defenders’ Circle: unit 151.

- lists of Jews collaborating with the Germans: unit 152.

Secretariat dossier:

- outgoing correspondence registers: unit 148.

- general correspondence: unit 149 (part 1).

- Branch Division in Krakow (records, reports, lists of cases taken to the court): unit 149 (part 2)

Personal files of cases considered, alphabetically (cause, locality, witnesses, (bill of) indictment, decisions): units 1–146.

The collection includes materials on the proceedings against Wiera Gran, Michał Weichert, Stanisław Gombiński and Szapsa Rotholc.

Archival history:: From 1948, the files of closed cases were transferred to the Jewish Historical Institute (ŻIH) archive. With the winding up of the CKŻP in 1950, the remaining documents of the court (including a small archive of the Krakow office) were included in the institute’s collection. The original volume of the archive and details of initial ordering or rearrangement work and the sorting out of the collection are unknown.

Administrative/biographical history:: The Civic Court (Public Court from 1948) was established on the decision of the CKŻP presidium in September 1946 to resolve cases involving the committee’s members; in practice, the court dealt chiefly with cases of moral attitudes during World War II. Punishment options included admonishment, rebuke, one- or three-year suspension of CKŻP membership rights and deletion from the list of members, the latter implying the loss of all rights related to membership of the organisation and exclusion from the Jewish community. In addition, publication of decisions and sentences on the committee’s board or in the (Jewish or nationwide) press could be adjudged. The court also issued clean record certificates to those applying for them. The court initiated some 150 proceedings in total, most of which were closed or discontinued based on no legal basis for filing the indictment. Judgments of acquittal were passed sporadically, which holds true also for decisions finding the defendant guilty as charged. The Public Court’s activity came to an end as the CKŻP was abolished.

Access points: persons/families:: Gombiński, Stanisław; Gran, Wiera; Rotholc, Szapsa; Weichert, Michał

Finding aids:: A catalogue in Polish was compiled in 2012 and is accessible online.

It includes a searchable index of names of people and localities for the trials.

Opracowanie: Andrzej Żbikowski, Sąd Społeczny przy CKŻP. Wojenne rozliczenia społeczności żydowskiej w Polsce, Warszawa 2014, s. 367

Author of the description:: Monika Taras; Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. E. Ringelbluma; 2015