or boiled cabbage, beets, or potatoes. So after a nervous night’s sleep interrupted by every suspicious rustle – it could be the Gestapo or a search – one arises hungry… Sometimes one cannot even go out to buy the coupon bread, those 120 grams one receives every other day. As it has been a week since we last went out, we have not bought that bread, for standing in a queue is risky business. Even women do not wish to stand in queues because even they are taken to forced labour.
[34] It needs to be said that even totally regardless of the plight of the Jews, who have been deprived of their rights, life became completely primitive. During the Bolshevik administration there were no manufactured goods or their quantity was limited and their quality poor. Now, however, there are no manufactured goods at all. Matches and cigarettes have disappeared altogether. There are no shops, because private trade can develop only when it is possible to transport goods, whereas now all means of transport have been halted by the authorities. Peasants’ carts, the only [available] means of transport, are an object of constant searches, robberies, and persecutions. Besides, everything that a peasant transports by cart or on foot is immediately confiscated by the Germans or Ukrainians. If by some miracle a peasant manages to enter the city he will sell milk, butter, eggs, or pork fat only in exchange for a wardrobe, sofa, bed, underwear, bedding, footwear, clothes, sugar, soap, or tobacco. He does not want any money. Jews, who no longer risk anything, buy food at any price: they give away clothes for a few eggs, or furniture or shoes for fatback. They will exchange anything for food. But the authorities soon pass an ordinance forbidding Jews to sell or buy anything. So this barter quickly comes to an end. And the people return to eating vegetables, vegetable soup, or cabbage with swede for dinner. But it is not that bad. It will be worse once they run out of vegetables. Friends are sending food from the provinces because there is enough of everything in the countryside, but what good does it do, when one does not have contact with anybody, as there is no postal service, trains, or any other form of transport to carry people or goods. So there is neither news nor aid from the outside, nor any hope here for improvement of the situation. If only we could at least buy bread at any price! But none is being sold. Besides, a Jew will not dare go out onto a street with a parcel, briefcase, suitcase, or sack, for anything he carries will be taken away by a German, Ukrainian, or random pedestrian, so it is Sisyphean toil.
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