Ministerstvo vnitra I., Praha

The Ministry of the Interior was established in 1918, and drew on the official agenda of the former Austrian Governor's Office. Its jurisdiction included matters of the state administration, organization of state and self-government authorities, issues of citizenship, and emigration and state security forces. The office consisted of 18 departments and this pattern was maintained throughout its existence (1918-1939, 1939-1945, and 1945-1948). At the time of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, the German population was excluded from its jurisdiction, falling under the specifically established German authorities and headed by the Office of the Reich Protector. After the 1942 administrative reform, some of the powers were transferred back from the German authorities to the Protectorate network of district and provincial authorities (headed by the Ministry of the Interior), and the leading posts of many offices were taken over by German officials. After the Second World War, the jurisdiction of the Ministry was restored in the form it had had during the pre-war Czechoslovakia, and was headed by a member of the Communist Party, Vaclav Nosek. This facilitated the Communists' seizure of power in 1948. Documents of this fonds illustrate the broad scope of the agenda of the Ministry of Interior. It included, apart from the security and administrative matters, also minority and language issues, citizenship, population register, press and censorship issues, and also the agenda of the then non-existing Ministry of Social Welfare. The most valuable documents can be found mainly in the presidial part the fonds, where the events of the period can be studied from the situation reports of district and provincial authorities. Documents relating to the history of the Holocaust can mainly be found in the files of the second registry period (1939-1945) and include the issues of emigration, Jewish associations, Jewish refugees from the Sudetenland, Aryanization of Jewish property, and the establishment of ghettos. From the period after 1945, they also include the return of the survivors from concentration camps and their integration into the society, or the granting of the Czechoslovak citizenship.