Metadata: Central Jewish Historical Commission of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland; Archival materials of Provincial Historical Commissions: Katowice, Krakow, Warsaw, Wroclaw
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Holding institution (official language):
- Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. E. Ringelbluma
- Postal address:
- ul. Tłomackie 3/5, 00-090 Warszawa
- Phone number:
- (+48 22) 827 92 21
- Web address:
- http://www.jhi.pl/
- Email:
- secretary@jhi.pl
- Reference number:
- PL 312/303/XX
- Title:
- Central Jewish Historical Commission of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland; Archival materials of Provincial Historical Commissions: Katowice, Krakow, Warsaw, Wroclaw
- Title (official language):
- (1) Centralna Żydowska Komisja Historyczna przy Centralnym Komitecie Żydów w Polsce; (2) Archiwa Wojewódzkich Komisji Historycznych: Katowice, Krakow, Warsaw, Wroclaw
- Creator/accumulator:
- Central Jewish Historical Commission of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland
- Date(s):
- 1944/1950
- Language:
- Polish
- Yiddish
- German
- English
- French
- Spanish; Castilian
- Russian
- Hebrew
- Czech
- Extent:
- 8 linear metres (62 boxes; 692 files)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection comprises materials generated in 1944-47 by the Central Jewish Historical Commission and by its branch offices (from 1947, local offices of the Jewish Historical Institute or ŻIH - the Provincial Historical Commissions of Katowice, Krakow, Warsaw, Wroclaw) between 1945 and 1950, as follows:
Organisational dossier (statutes, decrees and ordinances, circulars, minutes and records, work schedules, reports, propaganda materials): units 1-42.
Personnel matters: units 43-74.
Financial dossier: units 75-96.
Correspondence: units 97-171.
Certificates, contracts and agreements: units 172-175.
Various (including forms and notes): units 176-180.
Publishing affairs: units 181-212.
Instructions, manuals, questionnaires: units 213-215;
Historical materials:
- certificates, minutes and records: units 216-220;
- lists of names: units 221-242;
- inventories: units 243-259;
- accounts, recollections: units 260-263;
- documents, duplicates thereof: units 264-273;
- studies, articles, papers: units 274-303;
- radio broadcasts: unit 304;
- breakdowns, notes: units 305-308;
- various (including photocopied diagrams and charts): units 309-310.
Dossier related to the commission’s local offices: units 311-402.
Dossier related to the Society of Friends of the Central Jewish Historical Commission: units 403-411.
Archives of Governorate Historical Commissions:
- Katowice: units 412-449;
- Krakow: units 450-558;
- Warsaw: units 559-586;
- Wroclaw: units 587-608.
Duplicates: units 609-639.
Annexe (documents from almost all of the above sections): units 640-692.
- Archival history:
- After the transformation of the Central Jewish Historical Commission (CJHC) into the Jewish Historical Institute (JHI, 1947) the CJHC documents were included into the JHI collection. After the closure of JHI regional branches in 1950 their archival holdings were also included in the JHI collection. Information is missing on the original volume, initial cataloguing work and/or sorting out of the holdings.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- A historical commission was established in August 1944 in Lublin, chiefly in order to gather accounts, reports and other materials concerning the mass murder of the Polish Jewry. November 1944 saw the official establishment of the Central Jewish Historical Commission. In March 1945 its office moved from Lublin to Łódź and local branches were set up; the agencies in Krakow, Katowice, Warsaw, Wroclaw and Bialystok proved to be significantly active, with their contributors operating in smaller localities. The CŻKH archive and library were founded in Łódź and ethnographic and iconographic objects were gathered. The archive resource was composed of files of various offices, institutions, organisations and private individuals, primarily from the German occupation period; earlier material, such as dossiers of Jewish religious communities, was also added. 1946 saw the excavation of a fragment of the conspiratorial archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, the so-called Ringelblum Archive, which was included in the CŻKH collection. Apart from these archival resources produced during the occupation, and many other smaller collections, CŻKH has generated its own archive, which formed the outcome of this institution’s activities. The major part of this archive is the collection of accounts: nearly 1,300 items in late 1945 and currently some 7,000. The commission has also pursued scholarly research, edited original (source) publications, prepared historical studies and published memoirs and literary texts. By July 1947 it had published several dozen books and brochures. A very important segment of the commission’s work was its collaboration with other institutions and organisations researching Nazi crimes and the prosecution of wartime criminals. CŻKH took part in the preparations for the Nuremberg trials, supplying the Polish delegation with, among other items, a memorial entitled ‘The mass murder of the Polish Jewry under the German occupation in the years 1939-1945’. Data were also collected with a view to assessing the material losses incurred by the Jewish population in the territory of Poland during World War II. At formation, the intention was for the commission to become a Jewish Scientific Institute. The Central Judaist Library in Warsaw at 5 Tłomackie Street, the presidium of the Central Committee of Polish Jews (Central Committee of Jews in Poland, CKŻP) resolved on 3 May 1947 that the commission and its agencies should be moved to Warsaw. The new office started its operations in Warsaw in the summer of 1947 and formally became the Jewish Historical Institute (ŻIH) on 1 October 1947 pursuant to a resolution of the CKŻP’s presidium dated 27 September 1947.
- Subject terms:
- Historical research
- Memoirs
- Publishing
- Radio and television
- Finding aids:
-
A catalogue in Polish was compiled in 2006.
N. Grüss, [D. Grünbaum], Rok pracy Centralnej Żydowskiej Komisji Historycznej, Łódź 1946
A. Eisenbach, Di tetikayt fun der Centraler Yidisher Historisher Komisye, „Folks-Shtyme” z 8.11.1946 r.
B. Mark, Tsen yor zaml-forshung-un farlag arbet wegn der geshichte fun Yidn in Poyln, „Bleter far Geshichte”, 1954, t. 7, z. 2-3
M. Horn, Żydowski Instytut Historyczny w Polsce w latach 1944-1949, BŻIH, 1979, nr 109, s. 3-15
35 lat działalności Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego w Polsce Ludowej, Warszawa 1980
M. Horn, Działalność naukowa i wydawnicza Centralnej Żydowskiej Komisji Historycznej przy CKŻwP i Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego w Polsce w latach 1945-1950 (w czterdziestolecie powstania ŻIH), BŻIH, 1985, nr 133-134
- Yerusha Network member:
- Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Author of the description:
- Monika Taras; Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. E. Ringelbluma; 2015
