so some people may quote the names of hundreds of honest Poles, others will reply with the same number of dishonest ones, and both are right, and we cannot draw overly general conclusions because we do not know who is the majority. Thus, without generalising, we say that such accidents are many and everyone knows that, so listing a few names would be ridiculous and pointless.
Moreover, exploiting Jewish customers, taking advantage of the situation in order not to pay—this also happens quite often. It must be said that this could be done by any Polish client without risk, and yet most Poles do honestly fulfil their obligations. But at times, in order to get rid of a Jewish creditor, he was turned over to the authorities, and thus many a human life has been wasted through the fault of Polish clients. [9] We can hardly preach about mercantile morality and decency in trade, because Jews for sure have a lot to answer for in this respect, and are known to be deceitful, unreliable, bungling, and unscrupulous [. . .]. In this case, however, we are talking about Poles, and it is clear that they were quick to learn from Jews all their methods and exploit them, including blackmail (by far the most common) and denunciation. They also often pretend to be Volksdeutsch to frighten the Jews, or to get better conditions. This does not apply to those merchants who used to cooperate with Jews before the war, and now continue this cooperation.
Cooperation with such merchants is a godsend for the ghetto. But those newly made traders, merchants [. . .], and time-serving, former civil servants, opportunists loyal to anybody, the nouveau riche—those who have found a common language with our smugglers and profiteers—those heroes of the day are not the most honest of elements.
It is the officials who are by far the worst. Police officers, tax inspectors, prison wardens, officials working for power stations, gas works, the city, trams, and everyone else—they are a problem, a real plague. They all have bottomless pockets, terrible appetites, and they turn to blackmail at every opportunity, force bribes, take the last penny out of peoples’ purses. For just about anything, at just about any opportunity, they make you buy yourself out, otherwise they threaten with denunciation, protocol, arrest, court, or prison, for if a Jew stands accused, he must be convicted. A tax official enters a shop, striking men and women in the face. If they resist, he reports them. A large bribe helps; you have to pay for getting beaten, if the beating is to be all you get. An official enters a flat, and since he had to knock as many as 5 times before the door was opened, instead of with a “hello” he greets the lady of the
