Jews of Bratislava

 The Jewish history of the area now known as Bratislava dates back well over 700 years ago. Now the capital city of Slovakia, it was until 1918 in Hungary. Known in Hungary as Pozsony, it was the home of the Kings of Hungary. 
The Jewish community of Bratislava is first acknowledged in 1291, when they were granted a charter by King Andrew III. The members of the community, comprised mostly of merchants, bankers and owners of vineyards became taxpayers and established a solid community. The earliest synagogue was built in the 1330's.
Life in Bratislava was not always peaceful for the Jews living there. In 1360, the Jews were expelled from Hungary, and some residents fled to Austria. They were allowed back in 1367 and were even allowed to return to their homes. However in 1371, laws were put in place that regulated financial transactions between Jews and Christians. In 1392, Christians were exempted for a year from having to pay taxes on money owed to Jews. Later, in the mid 1400's, on two different occasions, all debts owed to Jews were cancelled.

Over the next 300 or so years, the Jews suffered through multiple restrictions on the community. The restrictions included who they could trade with and where they could live. Also, on numerous occasions they were expelled from Hungary. Because of these actions the Jewish population was under 200 hundred by the early 1700's.
In the early 1700's, Jews in the various areas of Bratislava were given some protection and were even allowed to establish small communities. In the 1770's the Jews living in the area of Schlossberg were permitted to settle on land owned by the city and establish their own "Jewish Street". The Jews of Bratislava became very well established. They established the textile trade in Hungary and helped Bratislava become a center of learning for Jews, in fact, for Orthodox Jews it became a major place of importance for the entire world. By 1930, the Jewish population of Bratislava had grown to almost 15,000 which was well over 10% of the entire population.
Now, Marelynn Zipser has transcribed the records of the Jewish community of Bratislava, and made those available to the Knowles Collection. This incredible work is now part of the Jews of Europe database. The collection can be search at the FamilySearch Community Trees site. That link is provided at the top right of this blog. A very special thanks to Marelynn for all her hard work. She is truly blessing so many with her efforts.

Knowles Collection -Jews of Europe updated

The growth that continues to take place has made it possible to update the Knowles Collection - Jews of Europe database. The database was last updated in August of 2012 to include the records of 82,800 people. Today's update increases that number by 60%.  The number of people who are now  included in the records is over 134,700.
The majority of the growth comes from two major sources;

1. The 1869 Hungarian Census. This database is now about 70% loaded into the collection. This collection is possible because of the wonderful work of Marelynn Zipser, who has spent years extracting this information. My thanks to her for making this accessible for everyone.
2. Headstones from Cemetire- du Pere-Lachaise, Paris, France. This information was gathered in August of 2012, by myself as I was in Paris speaking at the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) conference.

In addition to the sources above, the database has also benefited from the family histories that people have continued to add. I am most grateful to all of those who have shared the records of their families
with me, as so many are now able to document their own families.

Hungarian Civil Registration at www.familysearch.org

As we all know, it is almost impossible to have enough information as we do our research. We are always looking for more resources to find our families. The record collections available  at www.familysearch.org continue to provide great resources for those searching for their Jewish ancestors.
One of the newest databases should be of great help for those with Hungarian families. The Hungarian Civil Registration (1895-1980) records have started to be added to the collections. As of now, this database consists of over 5,6000,000 images of births, marriages and deaths. Those include births to 1920, marriages to 1950, and deaths to 1980 reported to and recorded by civil registrars. The coverage varies by locality. This is a collection that will be continually added to as the records become available.

In order to locate the collection, visit www.familysearch.org.

At the bottom of the title page, there is a map of the world and a list of the different locations covered by the collections.

 

At this point select the Continental Europe Collection. The complete list of available databases will appear, from those select the one containing the Hungarian Civil Registration records.

As of this time the collection is not name searchable, however until that time the records can be searched by location, which can be very helpful.

Records of the Jews of Hungary

The dedication and talents of those who are researching their Jewish families throughout the world never ceases to amaze me. I am almost weekly being contacted by people whose research has led them to document not only their own family but also the lives of those who lived in the same cities and countries. I feel completely overwhelmed when these good people, donate their great work to the Knowles Collection to help others.
Over the last few weeks, one of these incredible researchers has donated numerous databases to the Collection that document the Jewish communities of Hungary. The first database consists of the Jewish residents in the 1869 Census of Hungary linked as families. I will document in a later post about her great work and the history of the Jewish people in Hungary, but I felt the need today to thank everyone for their dedicated research and love of all of our ancestors. Her work will be added to the Knowles Collection- Jews of Europe database and will be available to all very soon.

Jews of Switzerland

The Jewish history of Switzerland spans hundreds of years. The first recorded Jews settled there in the very early part of the 13th century. The first Swiss Jews were located in Basel, which was one of the largest Jewish communities in all of Europe,The Jews of Basel, who were mostly from Germany and France arrived in 1213.
Other communities followed soon after, with Bern, St. Gall, Zurich, Schaffhausen, Dissenholfen and Luzerne all having Jewish communities before the end of the 13th century. These communities flourished until the middle of the 14th Century, when events in different cities caused
major changes. In Basel, the community thrived until 1348. Then the Black Death when the Jews were accused of poisoning the water supply. Over 600 Jews were taken to and island on the Rhine where they were burned at the stake. Their children were sparred but were forced to be baptised.
In Bern, at about this same time, the Jewish community was accused of murdering a Christian boy. The Jews were then expelled from Bern, however not much later they were allowed to return.
In the 14th Century, Jews began arriving from places such as Alsace, Nuremburg, France and many of the Southern German cities. During this time Jews were also given limited citizenship. This was not the same that the Christians enjoyed but it did give them some protection and allowed them to live in the cities if they paid certain sums of money. Foreign Jews were not allowed to live in the cities.
During the 14th and 15th centuries, most of the Jews were involved as merchants and money lenders. They did live under restrictions, such as being forced to live in certain neighborhoods and even being told which streets they could live on. They were also persecuted by some of the Swiss people, many times because those same people were in debt to the Jews. These areas became the center of their lives as they built the synagogues and had their shops in these same neighborhoods.
Over the next few hundred years, the Jews who had been expelled returned to their communities. While they did return, it did not always mean that the persecutions had ended. During the early 1400's many Jews faced death. In 1401 all the Jewish residents of Schaffhausen were condemned to death and in fact thirty were burned alive on 25 June 1401.
The community in Geneva wasn't established until the 1780's, but became a thriving community, building a synagogue in Carouge. They later became citizens and had their own burial ground. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Jews arrived from Eastern Europe and Alsace. Between 1900 and 1947 many synagogues were built and burial grounds established. In 1947, the Great Synagogue was rebuilt.
During the Holocaust, Switzerland gave refuge to over 20,000 Jews. Because of the neutrality that the government had these Jews were protected. As the war grew the Swiss government took steps to make it harder for Jews to enter the country and over 30,000 were denied access. After the war, things changed somewhat and the Swiss became supportive toward those who faced hardships in their own countries.
In the 1950's they looked after refugees from Egypt and Hungary and then 10 years later they helped those fleeing Czechoslovakia. Today, some 20,000-25,000 Jews live in Switzerland with about a third of those living in Zurich.
Jews from Switzerland will be found in the Knowles Colection - Jews of Europe database.

The synagogue records of Mattersdorf, Hungary

For many years the town of Mattersdorf was under the rule of Hungary. The city was located in the Bergensland region, that area between the Austrian Alps and the lowland area of western Hungary. Since 1921 however, it has become Mattersburg, Austria's eastern most province. Believed to have been settled by brothers fleeing Spain in the 1400's the population of Mattersdorf has fluctuated from around 400 in the 1740's to almost 900 in the by the early 1800's.
In an article published in the spring of 2007 (Avotaynu: The International Review of Jewish Genealogy, Vol. XXIII. No. 1, Spring 2007) Carole Garbuny Vogel and Yitzchok N. Stroh, give a beautiful desription of not only the history of Mattersdorf, but also of the families that lived there. One of those families was the Abeles family. The family Abeles lived in Mattersdorf and also a few neighboring towns such as,Eisenstadt and Lackenbach. They were a large family and to this day number hundreds, if not thousands of desendants.
Some of those descendants, hoping to preserve the records of the community have translated the birth, marriage and death records and linked them together as families. The total number of persons linked together is over 7500 people. These records have now been added to the Knowles Collection, and are available for anyone to use.

These records are available in the Jews of the Europe database.