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Jewish Records in the Czech Republic

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Jewish records from Bohemia and Moravia were collected from various regions and put in one place. They are now found in the National Archive and can be accessed online.

Jewish Vital Events Registers

Židovskė Matriky are the Jewish Vital Events Registers (birth, marriage and death) covering the period 1784 to 1949. They are found at this location.

These registers contain nearly three thousand volumes. Some of these registers have indexes. The registers from Prague and the Prague area are in a special group.

A description of an individual volume contains the name of the Jewish community that was the seat of the registry district, the kind of registry (N=birth, O=marriage, Z=death), the time span and the registry number. To find a particular locality the user may use a local index listing all places covered in the register and their inventory numbers.

The “master documents of death declaration” were transferred to the National Archive along with the Jewish Vital Events Registries. They include the autopsies from the Terezin/Theresianstadt ghetto from 1941 to 1943 and copies of certificates of presumed death for many victims of the Holocaust issued in the period from 1946-1950.

Jewish Control Registers

Židovskė Kontrolní Matriky are the Jewish Control Registers (birth, marriage and death) covering the period 1784 to 1874 in Bohemia. These registers contain more than 1,000 volumes of records concerning Jews that were originally included in the Catholic records for the areas of residence instead of in Jewish records. These records are for Bohemia; comparable documents for Moravia have not been preserved. They are found at this location.

Books of Jewish Families

Knihy Židovských Familiantů are the Books of Jewish Families kept by regional authorities and manorial authorities pursuant to a decree of February 28, 1823.
They are found at this location. These records include the 8,600 Jewish families officially permitted to live in Bohemia at that time and fill 194 volumes of records kept by regional and manorial authorities.

The archive also includes 94 volumes of records from Moravia kept by manorial authorities and former Jewish communities. These books do not have a uniform format.

Census Lists of Jews

Soupisy Židů are the census lists of Jews settled in Bohemia in 1724, 1783, 1793, 1799 and 1811. They are found at this location.

These census records provide information on the number of Jewish residents and families in each location, as well as on the structure, size and livelihoods of Jewish families.