Metadata: Minsk Inter-District Jewish National Chamber
Collection
- Country:
- Belarus
- Holding institution:
- State Archives of Minsk Region
- Holding institution (official language):
- Государственный архив Минской области
- Postal address:
- ul. Kozlova, 26, Minsk, 220037, Belarus
- Phone number:
- +375 (17) 358 55 64
- Web address:
- www.gamn.by
- Email:
- minoblarhiv@gmail.com
- Reference number:
- F. 423
- Title:
- Minsk Inter-District Jewish National Chamber
- Title (official language):
- МИНСКАЯ МЕЖРАЙОННАЯ ЕВРЕЙСКАЯ НАЦИОНАЛЬНАЯ КАМЕРА
- Creator/accumulator:
- Minsk Inter-District Jewish National Chamber
- Date(s):
- 1926/1934
- Language:
- Yiddish
- Russian
- Belarusian
- Extent:
- 2,285 storage units
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Scope and content:
-
The fond contains a significant volume of materials pertaining to Jewish history. These may be provisionally divided into the following thematic groups:
1) Documents on the interaction of the National Jewish Chamber of the People’s Court of the 15th Precinct of Minsk – later, the Inter-District Jewish National Chamber – with party and Soviet institutions and organizations. Among these are resolutions, circulars, instructions, and other documents of the People’s Commissariat of Justice and the Supreme Court of the BSSR, including extracts from minutes of sessions thereof, correspondence with these institutions on the organizing of legal proceedings, etc. (1926-34); directives of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the BSSR and correspondence with it on statistical reporting, on purchasing equipment, preparing cost estimates, providing for the security of courts, etc.
There are also cover letters to various documents of M. O. Stolov, people’s judge of the Minsk National Jewish Chamber, and of secretary Ts. Sh. Goldberg; statements by Stolov on matters pertaining to the conduct of trials; a resolution of the Minsk Area National Commission on a report by Stolov on court operations in 1926; etc. (1926-27).
The fond also contains correspondence with the following institutions: the Minsk District Court, on the preparation and hearing of criminal and civil cases, on appeals by persons found guilty, and on providing statistical data on cases that had been heard (1925-34); the Jewish Bureau of the Minsk Area Executive Committee, on operations of the court chamber (1927); the Prosecutor’s Office of the BSSR, on remitting documents pertaining to cases under the chamber’s jurisdiction in response to relevant inquiries (1933); and with enterprises and institutions of Minsk, on the financial and economic activities of Jewish court chambers (1934).
2) Materials on operations of the National Jewish Court Chamber of the 15th Precinct and the Inter-district Jewish National Chamber of Minsk, including reports on the activities of these court chambers (1926-29); information about expenses, including invoices, receipts, and other financial documents, as well as information on operations of the chamber, in particular, on trials held in it (1933); an inventory of the property fund of the People’s Court of the Jewish Precinct of the City of Minsk for May 1926; etc. (1926); organizational charts of courts of Jewish national chambers for 1926-33; appellate rulings of the Minsk Area Cash Office (1926-34); and lists of employees and jury members who took part in trials (1924-34).
3) Files pertaining to criminal and civil cases heard by national Jewish court chambers of Minsk, in particular, a set of files on suits filed by the Belorussian branch of the Society for Handicraft and Agricultural Work among the Jews (the BelORT) to recover money from Jewish farmers who received credit and interest-free loans from the BelORT to purchase livestock, seed grain, and agricultural equipment and inventory, with appended copies of a certificate issued to BelORT Bureau member I. S. Ugorskii instructing him “to act on behalf of the BelORT in the People’s Court regarding claims made by BelORT against various institutions, to conclude amicable adjustments with them regarding these claims, and to receive orders of execution and submit appeals” (1923-27); files pertaining to criminal and civil cases regarding claims by other institutions and organizations, including the Belorussian Union of Housing Cooperatives, the Minsk Society of Artisans, the Minsk Central Workers’ Cooperative (MTsRK), the Main Police Administration of the BSSR, etc., as well as suits filed by individuals regarding tax evasion, the sale of falsely labeled jewelry items, the theft of state property, the use of counterfeit banknotes, disorderly conduct, safety and labor violations vis-à-vis hired labor, insults of police officers, assault and battery, and the spread of false rumors; documents pertaining to cases involving the recovery of apartment and other rents, the eviction of persons illegally occupying apartments, the recovery of property and alimony, the dissemination of information “offensive to human dignity,” the distribution of inheritance, etc. (1924-34).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The National Jewish Chamber of the People’s Court of the 15th Precinct of Minsk was established on 2 January 1926 pursuant to rulings of the Jewish Bureau of the Minsk Area Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belorussia of 30 October and 14 November 1925. The chamber’s staff included the people’s judge, secretary, assistant secretary, clerk-typist, and courier. Operations of the National Jewish Chamber of the People’s Court of the 15th precinct were established by decrees and circulars of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the Belorussian SSR, including the statute “On the judicial system of the BSSR,” as well as by rulings and orders of the Minsk District Court. In connection with the resolution of the BSSR Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars “On the liquidation of areas” (26 July 1930), the National Jewish Chamber of the People’s Court of the 15th Precinct of Minsk was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the BSSR, insofar as the Minsk District Court had been liquidated. By decree of the BSSR Central Executive Committee of 25 January 1931, the National Jewish Chamber of the People’s Court of the 15th Precinct of Minsk was renamed the Minsk Inter-District Jewish National Chamber of the People’s Court of the 15th Precinct of Minsk. The chamber functioned as an inter-district judicial institution for the hearing, in Yiddish, of criminal and civil cases throughout Minsk. It was liquidated in June 1934 pursuant to a decree of the Presidium of the BSSR Central Executive Committee of 1 April 1934.
- Access points: locations:
- Belorussiya
- Minsk
- Subject terms:
- Agriculture
- Communism
- Communism--Communist parties and organisations
- Correspondence
- Crime
- Financial records
- Jewish languages
- Jewish languages--Yiddish
- Law enforcement
- Law enforcement--Police
- Legal matters
- Marriage and divorce
- ORT (Organisation for Rehabilitation through training)
- Professions
- Professions--Crafts
- Statistics
- Taxation
- System of arrangement:
- The fond includes a single main inventory and a supplemental one; these are systematized chronologically, and within particular years, by structure.
- Finding aids:
- Inventories are available.
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Theological Seminary