Metadata: Archive of the Town of Železný Brod
Collection
- Country:
- Czechia
- Holding institution:
- State District Archives Jablonec nad Nisou
- Holding institution (official language):
- Státní okresní archiv Jablonec nad Nisou
- Postal address:
- Turnovská 40A, Jablonec nad Nisou, 466 01
- Phone number:
- 00420 488 577 825
- Email:
- sokajbc@soalitomerice.cz
- Reference number:
- 1023
- Title:
- Archive of the Town of Železný Brod
- Title (official language):
- Archiv města Železný Brod
- Creator/accumulator:
- Town of Železný Brod
- Date(s):
- 1582/1945
- Language:
- Czech
- German
- Extent:
- 39.97 linear metres
- Physical condition:
- poor
- Scope and content:
- The fonds contains the records of the municipal authority of Železný Brod. Of particular interest are the records from 1938-45: meeting minutes of the local council and assembly 1938-45; meeting minutes of the Police Committee, 1919-39; 1939 and 1943 census lists based on house numbers (including date and place of birth, religious affiliation, right of domicile and length of residence in Železný Brod); a register of applications for right of domicile, 1911-40; and a register of inhabitants of Železný Brod. Files from 1938-45 include municipal office files, 1938-45; right of domicile (alphabetically arranged); Jews; refugees from the border areas (including a list of refugees from the German-occupied territory who were accommodated in Železný Brod until 19 November 1938); public charity collections, charity foundations and funds; housing support; tenement houses, summer apartments, hotel accommodation; apartment allocations (permission to settle), provision of apartments; and places of business (alphabetically arranged).
- Archival history:
- The records at the town hall were given to the newly established municipal archives after 1945. The archive came under the control of the district archives of Semily after 1954 and, after administrative reform, became a separate unit, the depository of district archives of Jablonec nad Nisou, in 1960. The fonds was arranged and inventoried in 1969-71. The depository in Železný Brod closed in 1995 and the records were transferred to the central archival office in Jablonec. The quality of the finding aid was assessed in connection with a general inventory in 2012 and the fonds was recorded as being unprocessed (only eight documents from 1725-93 remained inventoried). The original inventory, however, enables a basic orientation with regard to part of the fonds.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Železný Brod, originally just Brod or Brodek, was founded at a crossroads of trade routes around a ford on the river Jizera in the 11th or 12th century, but the earliest written references to the area date from as late as the 14th century. Brod probably acquired the attribute ‘Železný’ (iron) in the 15th century. The ironworking industry that gave it this name came to an end after the thirty years' war. Železný Brod became the seat of the district court in 1849 and was also the seat of the Bezirksamt (political and judicial district office) from 1855 until 1868, subsequently remaining the headquarters of the district court (the judicial district of Železný Brod, the political district of Semily and, from 1942, the political district of Turnov). Jews began to settle in the area in the 18th century and on a more permanent basis between the 1830s and the early 1860s. Initially Jews were only allowed to settle in the area known as Židovna, or the Jewish area (284 Jirchářská Street). There is a written reference to a Jewish house of prayer in Železný Brod from 1863. The local Jewish population belonged to the Jewish religious community of Turnov. After the Munich Agreement and the German annexation of the Sudetenland in October 1938, hundreds of refugees poured into the country from the occupied territory. A number of Jews from Jablonec came to the area of the Turnov Jewish community, mainly to Turnov and Železný Brod, about 15 kilometres away from Jablonec nad Nisou. They found temporary refuge here until they were deported to the Terezín ghetto and to other concentration camps.
- Access points: locations:
- Železný Brod
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is only partly accessible
- Finding aids:
- PADRTA F.-SOCHOR F.-WOWKOVÁ V., Archiv města Železný Brod 1582-1945. Inventář, 1971, 55 s., ev. č. 88.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Prague
- Author of the description:
- JMP Survey, 2015.
