Metadata: Łomża Municipal Court
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- State Archives in Białystok
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiwum Państwowe w Białymstoku
- Postal address:
- Adama Mickiewicza 101, 15-257 Białystok
- Phone number:
- +48 85 743 56 03
- Web address:
- http://www.bialystok.ap.gov.pl/
- Reference number:
- 5/202/0
- Title:
- Łomża Municipal Court
- Title (official language):
- Sąd Grodzki w Łomży
- Creator/accumulator:
- Łomża Municipal Court
- Date(s):
- 1945/1950
- Language:
- Polish
- Extent:
- 13.83 linear metres (7206 folders)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection of the Municipal Court in Łomża that was taken over from the District Court in Łomża in May 2000 comprises cases including certificates of persons declared to be deceased. There are extensive materials on the extermination of the Jewish population in Łomża county in the form of testimonies of witnesses in civil trials. These include documents related to the extermination of the Jewish community, for example in Jedwabne. In the records with the court ref. nos Zg. 167 and 236 from 1947; Zg. 129, 130, 165, 234, 235, 308, 334 from 1948 and Zg. 105 and 178 from 1949, we can find testimonies of people about the repression of the Jewish population during the German occupation. Mentions of events during World War II appear in the records of cases with ref. nos. Co 4, 13 and 52 from 1947. These records provide a total of 28 accounts submitted by 19 witnesses, including 9 of Jewish nationality. Of these 19, nine described themselves as eyewitnesses of the events (five of these were Jewish).
In case Zg 236/1947, another two witnesses of Jewish nationality were mentioned, whose testimonies are not included in the record. The records with ref. no. Zg 129/48 contain testimonies, for example, concerning the burning of Mejta Chinka Grądowska [Grondowska], the grandmother of Eliasz Grądowski by the Germans in 1941. In connection with this, Eljasz Grądowski submitted an application for a death declaration for Mejta Chinka Grądowska. 47 witnesses indicated by the applicant testified in the case records, including Tadeusz Zarzecki, who stated: “In 1941 the Germans drove all the Jews in Jedwabne, and also Mejta Chinka Grądowska, into a barn and burned it. I was an eyewitness to the burning.”
There are many similar testimonies. Cases regarding the confirmation of death were established mainly by persons related to the victims of the German crime committed in July 1942. Some cases also concern matters of real estate property left without an owner after the owners were murdered by Germans. The applicants demanded that they be granted possession of the real estate remaining in Jedwabne.
- Archival history:
- The records of the Municipal Court in Łomża were taken over from the District Court in Łomża in May 2000.
- Administrative/biographical history:
- Town courts were established in 1929, following the unification of the judiciary in the Second Polish Republic on the basis of the "Law on the System of Common Courts" of 6 February 1928 (Journal of Laws No. 12 of 1928). They replaced the former peace courts and were courts of first instance, subordinate to regional courts and dealing with minor civil and criminal cases. They functioned according to a one-person adjudication system and provided assistance to other courts. After the end of World War II, they functioned until 1950.
- Access points: locations:
- Łomża
- Subject terms:
- Holocaust
- Real estate
- World War II
- Finding aids:
- A printed inventory is available at the State Archives in Białystok.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław
- Author of the description:
- Urszula Gierasimiuk; December 2020