Gdańskie archiwalia w Jerozolimie. Ostoja pamięci
Gdańsk Archival Material in Jerusalem. The Bulwark of Memory

Summary/Abstract: At the end of the 1930s Nazi terror aimed against the Jews of Gdańsk assumed such dimensions that a relatively normal existence of the Jewish community in the Free Town of Gdańsk (Danzig) became no longer possible. Following the example of the Third Reich the authorities introduced the draconian “Nuremberg laws”, forbade Jews to pursue free professions, illegally evicted them from their homes, fired them from work, confiscated property, and liquidated Jewish institutions. This was the onset of the great Exodus of the Jews of Gdańsk – out of 30 000 Jewish residents living in the Free Town in November 1938 not quite 1 500 persons remained in the city on 1 September 1939. The Exodus also affected the movable property of the local Jewish kahals, accumulated in the course of several centuries, as well as their archives. In the second half of 1938 the huge archive of the Gdańsk Synagogue Kahals (Synagogen-Gemeind) was taken to Palestine. Archival material from Gdańsk goes back to the end of the seventeenth century and consists of the documents of five Jewish kahals; the last ones originate from 1938. The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP) were established in Jerusalem in 1939 – they gather archival material from Jewish kahals all over the world, the archives of Jewish institutions, and private archives of outstanding persons. Today, the Central Archives contain the most extensive collection of documents concerning the history of the Jewish people from the Middle Ages to modern time, including archival material from Gdańsk – memory about the residents of Gdańsk, who for several centuries together with other co-citizens built the might and greatness of the free Hanseatic town on the Motława, is thus preserved far from Gdańsk.

• Details
• Contents