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Subseries 2 - Szociális Osztály iratai (Documents of the Social Department)
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Part of XX. Holokauszttal kapcsolatos iratgyűjtemény

Identity area

Reference code

HU HJMA XX-A-1-2

Title

Szociális Osztály iratai (Documents of the Social Department)

Date(s)

  • 1944 - 1945 (Creation)

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Name of creator

Központi Zsidó Tanács Szociális Osztály (1944-1945)

Administrative history

The Social Department of the Council was created by the incorporation of the largest Jewish welfare and aid organization, the Welfare Bureau of Hungarian Israelites that was established in 1938 to ease the negative economic consequences of the Hungarian anti-Jewish legislation. It was brought to life by the joint efforts of all three Jewish community networks: the National Office of Hungarian Israelites (Neologue), the Central Office of the Autonomous Orthodox Israelite Denomination of Hungary (Orthodox) and the National Alliance of the Status Quo Ante Communites (Status Quo Ante). In 1939 the Zionists joined the organization as well. The Social Department also included the administration of the nationwide charity effort called the National Hungarian Jewish Aid Action. In May 1944, the Countryside Department of the Jewish Council was merged into the Social Department. The Department’s main task was to coordinate the aid, relief and welfare work of the Council. The Department leaned on a network of building commissioners elected by the tenants of the yellow-star buildings. The commissioners reported to the Department on the welfare needs of the building community. The Social Department was one of the largest administrative units of the Council – at the end of August 1944, 220 people were employed here. The identifiable subunits of this department include the following: Countryside Department, Family Protection Department, Central Aid, Legal Department, Accounting, National Hungarian Jewish Aid Action Department, Child Protection Department, Human Resources.

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This sub-series holds the documents of the Jewish Council’s Social Department pertaining to its aid and relief work. The records include: notes, reports, financial documents as well as lists of employees and lists of institutions supervised and supplied by the Social Department (orphanages, soup kitchens, etc.); correspondence of the Department with various departments and organizations of the Jewish Council; reports on the relief activity of the Department in the so-called yellow star houses. The body of documents also contains the letters of the Department to the Red Cross, and various German and Hungarian authorities regarding a wide array of subjects, such as fates of Jewish individuals as well as general conditions in internment camps. Notable documents include, for example:
• various name lists of the employees of the Social Departments and their family members
• correspondence of the Office for Support of Hungarian Israelites with countryside communities
• report on the patients of Jewish hospitals (October 11, 1944)
• correspondence of the Social Department of the Central Jewish Council (into which the Office for Support of Hungarian Israelites was incorporated along with other Jewish aid organizations) with: individuals asking for support, the leadership of the Central Jewish Council
• list of buildings to be evacuated in connection with the setting up of the “large” ghetto of Budapest
• reports on the inmates of various internment camps (Columbus Street, Rökk Szilárd Street, Horthyliget, Tsuk-telep, Mauthner-telep, Hermina major, Kistarcsa, Magdolna utca)
• various name lists (list of internees freed with the help of the Swedish embassy from the Rökk Szilárd Street interment camp, list of needy internees of the Kistarcsa interment camp, list of internees of the Horthyliget internment camp who fell victim to an air raid)
• minutes of meetings
• report on the accommodation of the former inmates of the Downtown Association of Israelite Women’s orphanage
• reports and correspondence regarding the Jewish social institutions (orphanages, hospitals, convalescent homes) in Budapest
• hospital referrals
• notes on the internment camps and the adequate lodging of the elderly
• daily reports, budgets, financial reports of the Social Department
• list of employees and the officials of the Social Department of the Central Jewish Council
• supplementary name list on those officials and employees of the Social Department who are to be provided with certificates (August 23, 1944; August 22, 1944; August 23, 1944)
• miscellaneous documents regarding the Jewish organizations’ efforts to supply the labor servicemen with proper clothing (June 1943 – September 1944): inventory of items, stock reports, packaging reports
• list of individuals supported by the Máramaros District Center (Máramaros Körzeti Központ) of the Office for Support of Hungarian Israelites (Magyar Izraeliták Pártfogó Irodája)
• lists of inmates released from various internment camps due to the intervention of neutral diplomatic corps
• lists of Jews protected by neutral diplomatic corps in various camps and hospitals

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