Popular Council of Oradea Municipality - General Archive

Collection

Holding institution:: National Archives of Romania, Bihor county directorate

Holding institution (official language):: Serviciul judeţean Bihor al Arhivelor Naţionale Române

Title (official language):: Consiliul popular al Municipiului Oradea. Arhiva generală

Scope and content:: The fonds comprises the files and registers of the General Archive of Oradea municipality from 1919 to 1950. It includes registers of entrance and issue of records and correspondence with alphabetical indexes, registers of tax payers and of taxes paid, financial registers of the Municipality, registers of authorisations and licenses issued for crafts and commerce, registers of authorised enterprises, electoral lists, lists of the unemployed, details of war damages and pay rolls of the employees of the municipality. The following files have specific Jewish references: File 1/1939, 1/1940. 53-54/1941- nationality registers of the Jewish population; File 51/1940 - authorisations for Jewish craftsmen and merchants; File 1/1941 - census of the Jewish population; File No. 15/1941 - statutes of Zionist organisations; File 4/1943 - Jewish properties; File 1/1944 - cancellation of leasing contracts for Jews; File No. 14/1944 - elimination of books by Jewish authors from public libraries; File No. 16/1944 - abolition of the organisation of Jewish teachers; File No. 17/1946 - status of survivors of the Holocaust.

Archival history:: The fonds was preserved by the Popular Council of the Municipality Oradea. After 1989 it was transferred to the Bihor county directorate of the Romanian National Archives, inventoried and made available to researchers.

Administrative/biographical history:: Oradea was mentioned for the first time in 1113. It obtained several privileges in the medieval period. In the second half of the 17th century it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire and subsequently liberated by the Austrian army in 1692. Until the First World War it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, being administered according to the administrative legislation adopted by the Parliament and government in Budapest. After the First World War the Romanian administration reorganised institutions of the city and Romanian became the language of administration. From 1940 to 1945 Oradea fell again under Hungarian administration. After the Second World War the the inter-war system of administration was reintroduced, which lasted until 1950 when the Communist regime reorganised the city and the former institutions were replaced by the so-called Popular Council. The city had an important Jewish community which in 1930 numbered 19,905 members out of a total population of 88830, while in 1941 it was 21,383 members of 98,621. In May-June 1944 the entire Jewish population of Oradea was deported to Auschwitz.

Subject terms:: Antisemitism; Antisemitism--Antisemitic measures; Census; Citizenship; Holocaust; Holocaust--Survivors; Professions; Professions--Crafts; Real estate; Trade and commerce; Zionism

System of arrangement:: The fonds is organised in thematic sections, within which the registers and files are arranged in chronological order. The registers have alphabetical indexes.

Access, restrictions:: After the recent move of the archive to a new building, access to the fonds is restricted for a period of time.

Finding aids:: Inventories no. 96, 97 and 98, held by the Bihor county directorate of the Romanian National Archives.

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

Author of the description:: Anton Dörner, emeritus researcher of the Institute of History of the Romanian Academy from Cluj-Napoca - 2019; Ladislau Gyémánt, emeritus professor - 2019.