Metadata: State Prosecutor’s Office of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the BSSR; Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Belarus
Collection
- Country:
- Belarus
- Holding institution:
- National Archives of the Republic of Belarus
- Holding institution (official language):
- Национальный архив Республики Беларусь
- Postal address:
- Nezavisimosti Ave. 116, Minsk, 220114
- Phone number:
- (017) 351-05-12
- Email:
- narb@narb.by
- Reference number:
- F. 750
- Title:
- State Prosecutor’s Office of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the BSSR; Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Belarus
- Title (official language):
- ГОСУДАРСТВЕННАЯ ПРОКУРАТУРА НАРОДНОГО КОМИССАРИАТА ЮСТИЦИИ БССР; ПРОКУРАТУРА РЕСПУБЛИКИ БЕЛАРУСЬ
- Creator/accumulator:
- State Prosecutor’s Office of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the BSSR; Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Belarus
- Date(s):
- 1922/2000
- Language:
- Russian
- Belarusian
- Extent:
- 4,538 archival storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
-
Materials in this fonds that pertain to Jewish history (ops. 1-4, 8) may be provisionally divided into the following thematic groups:
Materials pertaining to the religious life of the Jewish population of Belorussia in the Soviet period, including minutes of interrogations of persons accused of running underground cheders (1922-26); complaints filed by representatives of Jewish religious communities upon the authorities’ refusal to register, and/or closure of, synagogues and houses of worship, as well as complaints alleging abuses of power by local authorities, in particular, complaints filed by members of the Jewish religious community of the town of Beshenkovichi alleging that the Beshenkovichi District Executive Committee had acted improperly (1927); minutes of the Commission on the Separation of Church from State and of School from Church, including information on the conduct of propaganda against Judaism (1922-29); etc.
2. Minutes and reports of staff members of the Department for the Protection of the Law of the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Justice regarding violence, property damage, arson, and other crimes perpetrated against Jews, in particular, a case in which members of the Jewish Rykhlin family had been robbed and murdered by bandits (1922); etc.
3. Materials on the implementation of Soviet ‘nativisation’ policy in the BSSR, including inspection certificates on the operations of Jewish municipal, town, and village councils, and supervisory materials pertaining to the holding of elections to Jewish national councils (1926-30) – among these materials are lists of lishentsy (citizens deprived of suffrage), including Jews, in various districts of the BSSR (1930); etc.
4. A significant volume of documents, in particular, general-supervisory, court, and investigative files pertaining to cases of Jews accused of various crimes and offences, e.g., acting against “administrative order and the life, freedom, and dignity of the individual”; involvement in counterrevolutionary organisations, and “slandering the revolution”; investigative materials pertaining to cases of Jews accused of smuggling, illegal border crossing, profiteering, anti-Soviet agitation, etc. (1922-41) – these materials include files pertaining to the Feler family’s indictment on smuggling charges (1928), and the case of M I Shgamel’, who was accused of counterrevolutionary activities, with an appended death sentence (1933); etc.
5. Originals and copies of sentences handed down by the Supreme Court of the BSSR in criminal and civil cases, and indictments and other court documents, including the six-year sentence of Ia Gershtein, accused of spying on behalf of Polish intelligence agencies (1925); lengthy prison terms given to a group of Jews, including G I Fundler, I N Sheflin, and G N Bozin, who were accused of producing and selling counterfeit American dollars (1926); sentences (including lengthy prison terms, and the death penalty) applied to a “group of Jewish spies,” including I M Kaminskii, I I Lidskii, B L Zelikovich, D Sh Zelikovich, I V Kazhdan, and others, who were accused of being agents of the Polish security police Defensywa and of gathering classified information in Soviet territory for the purpose of espionage (1927); etc.
6. There is a particular group of documents consisting of statements and complaints filed by convicts requesting the review of sentences and rulings of people’s courts, as well as findings of the prosecutor’s office regarding such motions, in particular, complaints filed by the Jews L A and I L Pinchukov, L Z and I A Shnir, and others, who had been sentenced to lengthy prison terms on charges of profiteering, smuggling, “actively struggling against the working class and the revolutionary movement”, “serving in the tsarist secret police” and committing “socially dangerous actions that undermine the foundations of Soviet law and order”; as well as complaints filed by A K Saravaiskii and G I Mauerman, who were accused of having combatted the revolutionary movement during the October Revolution (1925); etc.
7. Minutes of general meetings of Communist Party members employed in the Prosecutor’s Office of the BSSR, and of primary party organisations and subdivisions thereof, at which members discussed a directive to “register members and candidates of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union” stipulating that “every communist must be processed” in connection with the war on “rootless cosmopolitans”. In particular, the minutes indicate that, in the context of this “anti-cosmopolitanism” campaign, the staff members Shafranovich, Shneidman, Ginzburg, Barkan and others were punished and removed from their posts in investigative departments of the Prosecutor’s Office (1947-52).
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The State Prosecutor’s Office of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the BSSR was established on 26 June 1922 pursuant to the Statute on Prosecutorial Oversight adopted at the 3rd session of the BSSR Central Executive Committee; it was meant to enforce compliance with the law, and ensure the proper organisation of the war on crime. Per the statute, the prosecutor’s office was entrusted with ensuring, on behalf of the state, the legality of the actions of state institutions, public organisations, and individuals. Oversight was carried out in the following ways: protesting decisions that contradicted the law, initiating criminal prosecutions, and reviewing the legality of the actions of investigative agencies and entities of the State Political Administration (GPU). Serving as the republic’s chief prosecutor was the people’s commissar of justice, who answered to the presidium of the BSSR Central Executive Committee. The department of the Prosecutor’s Office, which was part of the BSSR People’s Commissariat of Justice, was directly subordinate to the prosecutor of the BSSR. Upon the adoption of a directive (26 July 1936) of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the BSSR entitled “On the organisation of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the BSSR”, the Prosecutor’s Office of the BSSR was separated from the system of the People’s Commissariat of Justice and transferred to the jurisdiction of the Prosecutor’s Office of the USSR. In November 1936, the structure of the prosecutor’s office was reorganised, with the following departments established: general oversight, investigative oversight, judicial oversight of criminal and civil cases, special cases, oversight of detention centres, and complaints.
Upon the adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty on 27 July 1990 and of the law “To Ensure the Political and Economic Independence of the BSSR”, the independent state of the Republic of Belarus was established. On 29 January 1993, the law of the Republic of Belarus “On the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Belarus” was adopted; this was invalidated upon the adoption of the subsequent law “On the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Belarus” on 8 May 2007. According to the new law, the Prosecutor’s Office is defined as a unified and centralised system of bodies that, on behalf of the state, implements, in a precise and uniform manner, regulatory legal acts in the territory of the Republic of Belarus, and performs other functions as established by legislation.
- Access points: locations:
- Beshenkovichi
- Access points: persons/families:
- Bozin, G N
- Feler
- Fundler, G I
- Gershtein, Ia
- Ginzburg
- Kaminskii, I M
- Kazhdan, I V
- Lidskii, I I
- Mauerman, G I
- Pinchukov, I L
- Pinchukov, L A
- Rykhlin
- Saravaiskii, A K
- Shafranovich
- Sheflin, I N
- Shgamel’, M I
- Shneidman
- Shnir, I A
- Shnir, L Z
- Zelikovich, B L
- Zelikovich, D Sh
- Subject terms:
- Anti-religious activity (Soviet Union)
- Antisemitism
- Antisemitism--Anticosmopolitan campaigns
- Antisemitism--Antisemitic propaganda
- Communism
- Communism--Communist parties and organisations
- Crime
- Education
- Education--Cheders
- Jewish community
- Jewish nativisation
- Jewish political activity
- Law enforcement
- Legal matters
- Prisoners
- Smuggling
- Synagogues
- System of arrangement:
- The fonds comprises eight inventories arranged mainly chronologically and according to the structural-chronological principle.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary