Archive of the Town of Stráž

Collection

Scope and content:: The records of the municipal office in Stráž are very well preserved, particularly the deeds, land registries, a chronicle, accounting books, orphan books and most of the files. The files from 1939–45 contain material concerning the administration of property of Jews from Stráž and of the synagogue and cemetery after 1939. Some of these files have been removed from the fonds and stored in boxes III and IV, labelled Nazi occupation action. They concern, for example, the appointment of Treuhänder (trustees) for Jewish property, attempts by the Stráž municipality to acquire the burned-out synagogue and adjacent rabbinical house in order to establish a Hitlerjugend house and sales of gravestones from the Jewish cemetery in Stráž.

Archival history:: Most of the fonds was acquired in 1957 and further records have since been added.

Administrative/biographical history:: The municipal office in Stráž commenced its operation in 1850, succeeded older administrative bodies of the market town. Municipalities (Gemeinde) became the lowest components of self-administration in 1850, with independent authority (such as administration of municipal assets, domicile agenda, security and care for the poor) and transferred authority (such as guardianship, election, warrant, tax and military matters). The operation of the municipal authority was terminated in 1945.

Subject terms:: Cemeteries; Cemeteries--Gravestones; Plunder; Plunder--Aryanisation; Real estate; Synagogues

System of arrangement:: All town documents were ordered by the Stráž parish priest Jaroslav Baštář after 1948 according to whose list the archival records are sorted until today. The files are however mostly ordered only chronologically.