goods worth millions, official orders from the Transferstelle were limited to . . . 25 stools per month.
The brush-making industry has been in Jewish hands for several months, with no trace of competition. Brush-making workshops, which spring up like mushrooms, receive a steady flow of contracts. Orders come not only from Warsaw, but also from Kraków, Krosno, and other cities. The Transferstelle is not in any way involved with this turnover, either. The conclusion is clear, and Jewish manufacturers understand it. Happy are those cities where there is no Transferstelle . . .
An unknown land has been discovered . . . Warsaw Jews know how to work and they are good craftsmen. This belief dawned in the minds of Germans at the moment, it seems, when in one of the camps for Polish POWs, an officer broke a dog collar, so they were looking among the inmates for a saddler who would know how to repair it. The saddler turned out to be Jewish.
WAS?!!! EIN JUDE—EIN SATTLER?518
It is but a symbol, perhaps, and yet it exemplifies the outcome of the separation of the ghetto as a centre of production and the “discovery” of its capabilities. The Transferstelle sent a circular to all German chambers of industry and trade, as well as to all Wirtschaftsgruppen,519 which stated that 40% of Warsaw’s Jews were craftsmen, and that just when the German craftsman had to change his tools for a rifle, [2] the possibility of Arbeitsverlagerung520 opened in Warsaw. Der Judische Arbeitsmarkt521 has become a schlagwort522 in the economics of the German war. The circular of the Transferstelle garners a response from German companies, which—in the absence of a labour force, most notably shoemakers—start to take significant interest in Warsaw.
Unfortunately, this interest at best concludes with the arrival of a manufacturer or merchant to Warsaw, followed by the determination that labour costs are exorbitant for German circumstances. Wenn ein Funt Butter 40 zloty kostet, müssen sich ja die Leute, die auch aus dem Reiche kommen, am Kopf halten,523
