which would like to get this commission but does not have the machine. The Georg Binder apparatus is set in motion. One day in November 1941, the Transferstelle, where all economic affairs of the ghetto are concentrated, receives an order to examine the case: who is behind this Zemsz company and who are they actually working for? The Transferstelle in turn sends instructions to all concerned departments of the Jewish Council to collect information about Toba Zemsz’s workshop. An interesting internal conflict ensues within the Transferstelle. As an institution interested to some extent in the development of economic life in the ghetto, the Transfer would prefer if the factory on Grzybowska Street remained intact, but it is forced to adapt its “intelligence” to suit the interests of the German company. On the same day, information comes from the Jewish side: the Toba Zemsz Company works for an Aryan recipient, which in turn supplies the authorities, namely the Wehrmacht. So the unique machine, which decides the fate of several Jewish families, is needed for “higher” purposes. Toba Zemsz is saved for now.
The episode described above is characteristic of the relationships which prevailed in the field of scrap-metal collection and decided the fate of Jewish workshops.
Articles that did not entail any special complications included glass shards (collected officially) and wastepaper. Such waste was sent as it was outside the ghetto. Wastepaper collection (private) reacted immediately to the prices of paper. For example, November and December 1941 experienced large price increases on all types of paper. This was immediately followed by increased traffic in the paper-waste purchasing centre, no longer restricted to newspapers, but also to old ledgers, etc.
A particularly interesting field is that of down and feather collection. It also constitutes a breach in the wall that the Germans raised to separate Jewish economic activity in the [General] Government.502 We should remember that Jews occupied the dominant position in matters related to professional purchases, especially in rural areas. In order to eliminate the Jewish element from the business, the Germans intended to isolate them from the
