Mayor's office of Lăpuş

Collection

Holding institution:: Maramureş County division of the Romanian National Archives

Holding institution (official language):: Arhivele Naţionale. Direcţia judeţeană Maramureş

Postal address:: Bulevardul Bucureşti 26, Baia Mare 430052, judeţul Maramureş

Scope and content:: This fonds comprises the records issued by the mayor’s office of Lăpuş from 1931 to 1949. It includes records of the meetings of the village council, correspondence with the district and county authorities, instructions and decisions, budget sheets, registers of entry and issue of records.

The following files contain specific Jewish references: no. 8 - correspondence and records referring to individuals who were deported or included in forced labour detachments and to prisoners of war (1945); no. 11 - data on owners of estates over 50 hectares which are to be expropriated in accordance with the agrarian reform (1945); no. 15 - list and data on industrial enterprises in Lăpuş (1945); no. 16 - correspondence, records and statistical tables referring to the administration of Jewish properties (1945); no. 26 - real estate properties of persons missing from the locality (1946); no. 29 - circular orders concerning the nationality problems (1946).

Administrative/biographical history:: The village of Lăpuş is situated on the river of the same name at a distance of 12 km to the town of Tîrgu Lăpuş, in the central-northern part of an area called the Country of Lăpuş, at an equal distance (55 km) from Baia Mare, the seat of Maramureş county, and the town of Dej. It was mentioned for the first time in the year 1505. Since the middle of the 19th century industrial enterprises in the fields of iron works and pottery were developed here. During the interwar period Lăpuş had a Jewish community which comprised, according to the 1930 census, 95 members of a total population of 3016 persons, mostly Romanians. In 1940 Lăpuş became part of the Northern Transylvanian area which was under Hungarian administration and in April-May 1944 its entire Jewish population was first sent to the ghetto in Sighetu Marmaţiei and subsequently deported to Auschwitz.

Subject terms:: Citizenship; Forced labour (of Jews); Holocaust; Holocaust--Deportation; Manufacturing; Plunder; Real estate; Trade and commerce

System of arrangement:: The fonds is organised into thematic files which are arranged in chronological order.

Finding aids:: Inventory No. 256, held by the Maramureş County division of the Romanian National Archives.

Yerusha Network member:: Romanian Institute for the Research of National Minorities

Author of the description:: Anton Dörner (retired researcher), Ladislau Gyémánt (emeritus professor) 2017