Unique archive documents thousands of Jews connected to Ostrava
For nearly 25 years, Libuše Salomonovičová has been piecing together the stories of Jewish families connected to Ostrava in the northeastern Czech region of Moravia-Silesia. Now the 89-year-old researcher has donated her life's work, a unique archive containing records on some 33,000 people, to Ostrava's City Archive.
Although not Jewish herself, Libuše Salomonovičová married into a Jewish family. Her late husband, Michal Salomonovič, survived Auschwitz and several other concentration camps. She recalls meeting him as a young woman in the 1950s:
“I’m not Jewish, but I married into a Jewish family in 1957. I actually met my husband on the construction site of the Nová Huť Klement Gottwald steelworks. They were digging the foundations, and in return you got free train travel.”
A former employee of the Ostrava Museum, Salomonovičová began researching the city’s Jewish community after retiring. What started as a retirement project soon grew into a vast undertaking. Over the years, she worked through registry books, census records and archives, while corresponding with descendants of Ostrava Jews living around the world.
The result is an extraordinary collection documenting around 33,000 people who passed through Ostrava between the 19th century and the end of World War II. They include poor migrants who arrived from Galicia in search of work, as well as merchants, hotel owners, architects and other prominent figures who helped shape the city's development.
The archive consists of 34 card-index boxes packed with names, photographs, family histories and personal stories. As the archive grew, it gradually took over parts of her home:
“I had some of it on the floor in the kitchen, some of it in the hallway. Back then, families didn’t have just one child. A man might have had five sons, and his file alone would be this thick. Today I’ve handed it all over. Around 33,000 Jews passed through Ostrava from the nineteenth century until 1945.”
After nearly 25 years of research, Salomonovičová decided the time had come to part with the collection. Her deteriorating eyesight made it increasingly difficult to continue the work. Although institutions in Prague and Tel Aviv expressed interest in acquiring the archive, she was determined that it should remain in Ostrava, the city whose Jewish community she had spent decades documenting.
The collection has now found a permanent home in the City Archive of Ostrava. According to its director, Hana Šústková, it will be valuable not only to historians and researchers, but also for practical administrative purposes.
“It is an enormous amount of work, an enormous effort, and it took her 25 years. It is valuable not only for scholarly research into the Jewish community and social history, but also for our official work. We still deal with applications for the restoration of Czech citizenship. Every week several requests arrive from all over the world. Using these archival materials, we help determine whether applicants are entitled to citizenship or not.”
Before World War II, Jews made up almost one in ten residents of Ostrava. Today only a few dozen members of the Jewish community remain in the city. Thanks to Libuše Salomonovičová’s decades-long research, thousands of names, faces and stories that might otherwise have been forgotten have been preserved for future generations.
Related
-
“We’re standing on their shoulders”: Jewish Museum honours war-time staff
New plaques at Prague’s Old Jewish Cemetery pay tribute to staff at the city’s Jewish Museum who saved countless valuable artefacts during the Holocaust.
-
Suitcase of journalist Milena Jesenská discovered after decades acquired by Prague museum
Prague’s Museum of Czech Literature has acquired a suitcase once owned by writer and journalist Milena Jesenská. It was preserved by a fellow prisoner’s family.
-
Dita Kraus: The "Librarian of Auschwitz"
A Holocaust survivor from Prague, Dita Kraus endured Auschwitz before rebuilding her life in Israel — her “home without roots.” She passed away on October 18, 2025.
