The Medias Jewish Community Collection contains material spanning the life of the community, with documents dating from the late 19th century until the end of the communist era as well as general administrative paperwork into the 1990s (when the community, for all intents and purposes, no longer existed). The bulk of the material is from the mid-20th century (1940s-1970s) and of administrative or financial nature. Several extensive items of particular historic significance have been digitized and are available below in Series III: the 500-page book of meeting minutes covering board member and community meetings from 1930-1947 (
Box OS21); hundreds of registration forms created by the Jewish Council (Centrala Evreilor) during the war which recorded an individual's family background up to the grandparents (names, birthplaces and date) (
Box OS18 and
OS19); the burial registry with details on tombstone location, date (and sometimes cause) of death and accompanying index of names (
OS13); and the
cemetery map (last item in Series III). The original statutes of the community, in Hungarian from 1894, as well as later German and Romanian versions, are also digitized and can be found in Series V (
SD2/folder 2). The material in this collection may be of interest to those researching Jewish life, identity, and culture in southern Transylvania before and during World War II and Jewish life under the Romanian communist government. For additional details on the contents of each series, please see the comprehensive container list below. The collection is arranged by series and chronologically within each series.