Metadata: Spa of Jeseník
Collection
- Country:
- Czechia
- Holding institution:
- State District Archives Jeseník
- Holding institution (official language):
- Státní okresní archiv Jeseník
- Postal address:
- Tovární 18, Jeseník, 790 01
- Phone number:
- 00420 584 411 710
- Email:
- podatelna@je.archives.cz
- Reference number:
- 376
- Title:
- Spa of Jeseník
- Title (official language):
- Lázně Jeseník
- Creator/accumulator:
- Priessnitz Sanatorium, Gräfenberg
- Date(s):
- 1835/2000
- Language:
- Czech
- German
- Extent:
- 1.42 linear metres
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The fonds consists of documents concerning the Jeseník spa (German: Grafenberg - Freiwaldau, Czech: Gräfenberk - Frývaldov until 1947) from 1835-2000. The bulk of the fonds contains documents of the commission set up in 1876 to manage the spa. Jews as spa guests are only mentioned occasionally, most notably in the visitors’ book from 1877-1906: guests complained in 1882 of "annoying caftan Jews (Kaftanjuden)" and a Jewish patient, Moritz Siegel of Anopole in Galicia, complained in the same year of general antisemitism in the spa. Also relevant are four books of minutes of meetings of the spa commission from 1889-1930 and eight books of the commission’s income and expenditure from 1835-76.
- Archival history:
- The pre-1945 archives of Jeseník spa and Priessnitz sanatorium were given to the district archives in Jeseník and the regional museum in Jeseník in 1952. The documents from the museum were transferred to the Jeseník district archives in 1959. The entire fonds, titled Priessnitz sanatorium, Jeseník, was transferred to the state regional archives in Opava in 1978 and then in 1990 to the district archives in Šumperk. In 1996 it was moved to the newly formed state district archives in Jeseník where it is titled the fonds of Jeseník spa. Documents from the appraisal material of the successor of the creator, Priessnitz Spa, a.s., and from the transferred materials of the regional museum in Jeseník were gradually incorporated after 1996.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The spa in Jeseník was founded in 1822 by the hydrotherapy pioneer Vincenz Priessnitz (1799-1851). From 1876-1945 the spa commission oversaw its administration, managing the spa fund, receiving complaints and suggestions from guests and reporting back to the Bezirkshauptmannschaft (district head office) in Jeseník. The spa became famous, attracting patients from all over Europe, including many Jews. For their needs a seasonal Jewish prayer house and a kosher restaurant operated by a Jew, Felix Grünbaum, were established at the spa. Jews were among the spa’s doctors and house owners as well as its patients. One such was the owner of the Ziffer spa house (now the Albatros hotel of the Military Spa Sanatorium), Dr Ferdinand Ziffer of Krnov. The spa’s chief physician, the psychotherapist Dr Josef Reinhold, was also of Jewish origin and worked in Gräfenberg from 1913. In September 1938 he fled to Poland and later to the Soviet Union. In 1941 he was arrested and taken to a concentration camp in Drohobycz where he survived the war. In 1946, he returned to Gräfenberk, where he died a year later from the effects of his time in the camp. The Czechoslovak state spa of Jeseník was established in 1956 and included sanatoriums in Dolní Lipová, Bludov, Velké Losiny and, in 1956-61 and 1983-91, Karlova Studánka. In 1992 the organisation was transformed into Priessnitz Spa, a.s., of Jeseník. The Priessnitz sanatorium at Gräfenberg was built in 1909-10 and is now called the Priessnitz Spa House.
- Access points: locations:
- Jeseník
- Access points: persons/families:
- Siegel, Moritz
- Subject terms:
- Antisemitism
- Health and medical matters
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is not accessible.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Prague
- Author of the description:
- JMP Survey, 2015.