greater freedom. Since the rag-collection business faced a decline, prices paid for the goods were revised to accommodate the actual market capabilities.
It is not true, however, that only the belief in the need for a more liberal pricing policy would sustain certain standards of rag collection. Jewish activity in this field, so restricted in other areas, also generated an artificial boom in the rag business. Soon after the opening of the central repository on Młocińska Street, which—due to concessions from the Germans—was monopolist, albeit for a short time, the Jewish competitors of Mr Urwicz decided to break the uniform organisation of the company. These gentlemen knew how to find “appropriate” Germans, whose influence was apparently stronger than the monopoly of the Vienna company. They launched competitive repositories that paid about 1 grosz more for a kg of rags. Even such a minimal difference managed to cause a breach in the monopoly large enough for the competition to take over the remaining minor and medium wholesalers, as well as [4] rag pickers. Under these conditions, of course, the company had to change its approach and adjust its pricing policy to the circumstances created by the competition.
The issue of rag collection has been discussed more extensively because it is a symbol of two phenomena:
a) the German tendency to restrict Jewish economic activity to the collection of “Altmaterialien”494
b) the powers that counteract this tendency and channel the Germans’ intentions according to the wishes of a group of Jewish businessmen. These businessmen, creating an artificial boom in the rag trade, pulled the Germans into the circle of their business rather than the other way round. Generally speaking, rag collection, conceived from the beginning as a mass operation, did not bring any specific economic results, in the sense that it led to larger numbers of Jewish workers being employed.
The establishment of the Transferstelle and the Department of Industry and Trade has not affected the essence of rag trade in any significant way. These circumstances only served to separate the Jewish rag collector (regardless of his position in the profession) from the Germans, moving technical and formal issues to these official bodies. The Department of Industry and Trade of the Jewish Council, having taken over only the formal aspects of collection,
