Judaika v Archivu České národní banky
Judaica in the Archive of the Czech National Bank

Author(s): Lenka Vrchotová
Subject(s): Jewish studies, Archiving, Economic history, Ethnohistory, Financial Markets
Published by: Židovské Muzeum v Praze
Keywords: Jews; Czech National Bank; archive; Judaica;
Summary/Abstract: The research community tends to associate the Archive of the Czech National Bank (“the Archive”) primarily with archival documents that are of importance for research on economic history, especially the history of banking, because the archival materials housed there are mostly the institutional fonds of Czechoslovak monetary institutions. This paper shows, however, that research in the Archive’s holdings can provide answers to questions relating to the clients (both corporate and individual), rank-and-file employees, and Jewish managers of these institutions. It acquaints us with the documents of Judaica in the Archive with focus primarily on the source base for three specific areas: bank clientele, the staff policies of monetary institutions, and Jewish financial elites. Particular emphasis is placed on sources that have either not been used by the research community at all or that have been studied only marginally. The paper also provides a survey of research interest in the study of Judaica in the Archive of the Czech National Bank between 2010 and 2020. This shows that research interest in this topic has been relatively constant over the last ten years, but also that researchers on Jewish history have not yet made full use of the diverse archival holdings in the Archive. Three reasons are provided as to why this is the case: there is limited awareness of the sources in the Archive; fewer archival documents now need to be traced by the Czech Republic’s Joint Working Commission dealing with the mitigation of property injustices inflicted on Holocaust victims; and the focus of research on banking history in the Czech Republic is not oriented toward Jewish-related topics.

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