Metadata: Records of the Jewish Community in Kraków
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute
- Holding institution (official language):
- Żydowski Instytut Historyczny im. Emanuela Ringelbluma
- Postal address:
- ul. Tłomackie 3/5, 00-090 Warszawa
- Phone number:
- +48 22 827 92 21
- Email:
- secretary@jhi.pl
- Reference number:
- PL 312/107
- Title:
- Records of the Jewish Community in Kraków
- Title (official language):
- Akta Gminy Wyznaniowej Żydowskiej w Krakowie
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jewish Community in Kraków
- Date(s):
- 1701/1939
- Language:
- Polish
- German
- Yiddish
- Hebrew
- Latin
- English
- French
- Extent:
- 1226 archival units; 3 linear metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Cartographic material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection includes the following:
I. The oldest files of the community (1701-1869):
- financial, court and administrative matters;
II. Administration and Board of the Community 1870-1939:
- minutes of the meetings of the Representation of the Israelite Congregation and individual sections of the Congregation in 1870-1912;
- minutes of the meetings of the Community Board 1918-1938;
- statutes and draft statutes 1869, 1883, 1893, 1897, 1900, 1906, 1914, 1925-1926;
- circulars, flyers, community announcements 1880-1939;
- elections to community authorities, regulations, election ballots, voter lists;
- minutes of the election commission 1889-1903, 1905, 1907-1913, 1917-1929;
- correspondence with the authorities, other Jewish communities and organisations as well as with private persons 1900-1936;
- correspondence ledgers 1865-1866, 1869, 1870, 1875-1877;
- indexes for the correspondence ledger of the Israelite Congregation 1853-1854, 1858-1859, 1862, 1864, 1867, 1893 (registers of cases considered by the office);
- delivery books 1884-1907, 1913, 1914, 1920-1924, 1938-1939;
- finances: budgets and estimates 1893-1894, 1897-1898, 1902-1903, 1908-1909, 1912, 1919-1923, 1925, 1927-1929, 1931-1936;
- cash flow registers 1873-1935 (missing);
- revenue and expenditure registers 1870-1928;
- community fees 1866-1902, 1928-1939;
- payer lists, community fees 1902, 1925, 1927-1929, 1931-1936;
- list of community members (men) around 1900;
- community property;
- bequests, foundations, gifts for the community 1880-1936;
- community employee personnel matters 1907-1936;
- records of the rabbinate;
- correspondence ledgers 1861-1914;
- delivery ledgers 1875-1910;
- various correspondence 1900-1939;
- matters relating to filling the position of rabbi 1900-1935;
- personnel matters of rabbinate employees 1897-1939;
- income and expense books: of the Poper synagogue 1821-1887, burial society (Chevra Kadisha) 1871;
- records and documents of individual synagogues 1893-1934;
- registers of wedding announcements and marriages, including:
- wedding announcement registers- the years 1897-1899, 1891-1910, 1912 and 1914-1922;
- marriage registers - 1877-1882, 1893-1899, 1904-1906, 1909, 1913, 1919, 1921, 1924, 1929;
- marriage registers of the Progressive Israelites - 1919-1939;
- schools and education;
- Community hospital: correspondence; hospital funds books 1905-1919; patient ledgers and medical history registers (hospital in Kazimierz 1840-1909); patient intake registers 1882-1890; annual reports 1900-1933; hospital personnel matters 1899-1939;
- bathhouse 1912-1935;
- slaughterhouse, cases concerning filling the position of a shochet 1898-1934;
- statutes of Jewish associations in Kraków 1888-1937 (Kraków Society of Chess Lovers named after Józef Dominik; "Patronat" Association, Kraków branch of the Provincial Association of Aid Institutions and Organisations for Children and Youth in Kraków; "Merkaz Yeshiya” Association; "Yeshivas Etz Chaim" Association; Home for the Elderly; "Gemilat Chasudim" Association; Universal Association of the Jewish Society of Gymnastic Sports "Maccabi" (Polish branch).
- Archival history:
- Before the outbreak of World War II, the Jewish community in Kraków was one of the few communities in Poland that had an archive that was well organised, for the most part. Cataloguing was done by Dr. Judyta Freilich. In 1942, the partially incomplete archive was transferred, by order of the Germans, from the building of the former Jewish community to the Municipal Archives in Krakow. In 1948, it was taken over by the Jewish Historical Institute in the form of a deposit from the collections of the State Archives (now National Archives) in Kraków. It has not been determined when and on whose order the "Kraków Associations" records were separated from the rest of the archive.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Permanent Jewish settlement in Krakow dates back to the 12th century; the community was probably formed in the 13th century. In 1304 there was a Jewish street (later St. Anne Street), next to which there were two synagogues and a cemetery. In 1334, King Casimir the Great issued a privilege to the Jews of Lesser Poland. In 1494, most of the Jewish buildings burned down and the fire spread to other parts of the town. The Jews were expelled and gradually moved to the then separate town of Kazimierz (now a neighbourhood of Kraków), where a Jewish settlement had existed from the end of the 14th century, and where the development of the Krakow community has continued since then. From 1407 at the latest, there was a synagogue (today called the Old Synagogue). Refugees from Germany, Bohemia and Moravia also settled in Kazimierz. In 1519, the Kraków community was divided into separate Polish and Czech communities, each headed by a rabbi, two elders and a Jewish school teacher.
Over time, these two communities merged into one. In 1578, over 2,000 Jews lived in the walled “Jewish town". In the first half of the 17th century, there were about 4,500 Jews. In 1608 the "Jewish town" was expanded. The oldest known statute of the community dates back to 1595. From the mid-16th century, authority in the community was exercised by 4 elders (different every month), 5 lay judges and 14 eminent men (members of commissions or departments), 3 judicial senates (9 judges) and 3 accountants to assist the jurors, 5 main synagogue administrators, orphan guardians, alcohol tax comptrollers. The community had following offices: charity (including the burial society), kosher butchers and bath houses; each synagogue had its board over time; market and sanitation in the town oversaw kosher issues; treasury; moral supervision, anti-luxury supervision, inspection of education in public schools, etc . More offices were established with time, e.g., for the rehabilitation of prisoners or for collecting money for the Holy Land. The community played an important role in the Diet (Sejm) of Four Lands. It was also a centre of Talmudic scholarship that had international standing. Famous rabbis taught here: Jakub Polak, Shalom Szachna, Moshe Isserles, Yomtov Lipman Heller and others. The community was wealthy, traded on a large scale and craftsmanship developed here but it was hindered in the 17th century by fires, plagues, Swedish wars, famine, and anti-Jewish incidents.
In 1802 Kazimierz was incorporated into Kraków, together with the new Jewish cemetery established in 1800 (expanded in 1836). In 1867, restrictions on residence ceased to apply, and the organiaation of the Jewish population adopted the name of the Israelite Religious Community, which had no judicial and tax competences. The community built a hospital and a network of schools. In the 19th century, the share of Jews in Kraków's economy and culture gradually increased. The number of Krakow's Jews grew from 13,500 in 1850, to 32,000 in 1910, 45,000 in 1921 and 56,600 in 1931 (26% of the city's population). Before the outbreak of World War II, the Kraków community was the fourth largest in Poland. It is estimated that approximately 3,000 people survived the Holocaust, or about 5% Kraków Jews. The present Jewish community in Kraków is the only one in Poland that preserves organisational continuity from before the Second World War.
- Access, restrictions:
- Original documents are available in the Jewish Historical Institute reading room. Only the registers of marriages and marriage banns are accessible as scans in the reading room.
- Finding aids:
-
There is an electronic database for a part of the collection - books of wedding announcements and marriages of the Jewish Community and the Progressive Israelites in Kraków. It can be accessed in the Jewish Historical Institute reading room and online.
A digital version of the card catalogue (2013) is available in Polish. It is also available online.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław
- Author of the description:
- Monika Taras; The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute; October 2019