their receipt, about what kind of passport had been prepared for them. That was also when they learnt that passports with §11 were prepared for all refugees. Consequently, many did not collect those passports with §11, leaving them at the police station until further clarification, because acceptance of those documents was tantamount not only to losing one’s job and the opportunity to remain in Lvov, but also to being unable to settle anywhere else, because during that period the refugees could not register anywhere outside Lvov on the basis of those passports.
This is one of the reasons frequently offered to explain the fact that when the registration for return to the German-occupied terrains began after a short while, a large number of the refugees (a minimum of 90 per cent) declared their intention to return. It was a very important reason, which inclined many refugees to declare their intention to return. It was also why all those refugees who were employed in Soviet institutions did not collect their passports at all despite their employment, after they had discovered [5] that the refugees were denied full, unrestricted passports.
Soviet–German commissions in Przemyśl668 Meanwhile, news reached Lvov that, as earlier rumours had it, mixed Soviet–German repatriation commissions had indeed begun to operate in Przemyśl and that they were issuing passes for return. But Poles were almost the only beneficiaries, as the Germans did not wish to let Jews in. Only a handful of Jews who showed forged Aryan documents managed to cross the border, plus a very small number of Jews who had their own Jewish documents, mostly physicians and people repatriated from the territories under the German occupation. [6] When the news about the Commission’s activity reached Lvov, Jewish and Polish refugees began to “emigrate” to Przemyśl.
“Emigration” to Przemyśl. It should be pointed out here that due to the Commission many Poles and Ukrainians who were from Lvov and living there permanently obtained passes as quasi-refugees with forged documents and left the territory occupied by the USSR. The enormous influx of people willing to return led to the formation of an entire group of machers (middlemen). In exchange for a pre-agreed exorbitant sum of money (up to a few thousand roubles) the machers undertook somehow to obtain a “number” enabling their client to “stand” before the Commission and obtain a pass.
