Metadata: Bloch business archives
Collection
- Country:
- Belgium
- Holding institution:
- City Archives of Ghent
- Holding institution (official language):
- Stadsarchief Gent
- Postal address:
- Dulle-Grietlaan 12, 9050 Gentbrugge
- Phone number:
- +32 (0)9 266 57 60
- Web address:
- http://www.gent.be/zwartedoos
- Email:
- stadsarchief@stad.gent
- Reference number:
- ArCity-Ghent-Bloch
- Title:
- Bloch business archives
- Title (official language):
- Bedrijfsarchief Bloch
- Creator/accumulator:
- Patisserie Bloch
- Date(s):
- 1930/1990
- Date note:
- Most of the material dates from the 1950s to 1970s.
- Extent:
- 24 linear metres
- Scope and content:
- This fonds mainly consists of documents concerning the bookkeeping and accounting of the business, and the management of the buildings. From the finding aid (a list), we note i.a. invoices, documents concerning the individual accounts of the staff, bank statements, deposit receipts, various ledgers and registers, records concerning the salary of the staff, documents related to investments, to personal income taxes, etc. This general material is roughly dated ca. 1933-1990s, although most of the material dates from the post-war years (especially the 1950s-1970s). We point out the correspondence regarding the company (1961-1984) but especially the “documents regarding personal matters” (nos. 168-176; dated 1946-1975). These last files contain, apart from documents of a general nature concerning the private life of Jacques Bloch, also correspondence (nos. 175-176) with i.a. the CCOJB, SSJ, KKL, Keren Hayesod, the Conseil national belge pour les juifs d’URSS, the Union des Déportés Juifs et Ayants-Droit en Belgique, the Koninklijke en Ridderlijke Gilde van St. Michiels, the local sections of the liberal party, etc.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Bloch bakery, located in Veldstraat in Ghent, existed between 1898 and 2008. All this time it remained in the hands of four generations of the Bloch family. The Boulangerie Viennoise Bloch Frères opened its doors on 30 April 1899 and was led by Benjamin Bloch – who came from a Jewish family from Alsace whose relatives also owned bakeries in Brussels, Antwerp, Liège and Ostend – and his wife Sophie Loeb. The bakery brought a new selection of typical breads, cakes and pastries to Ghent. After the death of Benjamin Bloch (1922) his son Rodolphe succeeded him. During the Second World War, Rodolphe fled to New York with his wife Alice and their children; Sophie Loeb managed the business in the meantime. However, from 1942 the bakery was sequestered and sold to the collaborator Verhelst. On 24 January 1943 Sophie was arrested by the Feldgendarmerie and deported to Mechelen. She would not survive Auschwitz. In 1945 Rodolphe and Alice returned and reopened their bakery and tearoom a year later. Rodolphe died in 1958. His son Jacques Bloch, together with his wife Christiane and his sister Nicole Bloch, took over the patisserie. In 1979 Jacques’s son François also entered the business. François and his wife Linda were the last owners of the famous patisserie alsacienne, which finally closed its doors in 2008. The recipes of the Patisserie Bloch were published in three cookbooks (2011-2012). (Bedrijf en familie on http://www.patisseriebloch.be/bloch_historiek_bedrijfenfamilie.html; S. Dehaeck, Gids van bedrijfsarchieven in de provincie Oost-Vlaanderen, Guides/Gidsen no. 76, Brussel, ARA-AGR, 2011.)
- Access points: locations:
- Ghent
- Access points: persons/families:
- Bloch, Jacques
- Finding aids:
- There is an unpublished list.
- Yerusha Network member:
- State Archives of Belgium
