[7] Numbers zur Mutti669. The method was this: first, an applicant received a receipt with a number and the inscription zur Mutti – a “number”. He then waited with that “number” for his name to be called out, after which he appeared before the Soviet Commission. He had to provide his personal data, declare his intention to return properly, and then approach the German Commission’s table, where the procedure began anew. If neither of the commissions objected, the applicant obtained a pass to cross the border. The characteristic element was that the members of the Soviet Commission often asked if a given [8] applicant had a job there, if he was content, and if so then why did he wish to leave their country. Furthermore, particularly in the case of practical professions of the intelligentsia, such as physicians or engineers, the applicant was encouraged to stay and told that the situation would eventually improve, that the Soviet Union was a land of opportunity, that it needed the intelligentsia, etc., etc. The members could not understand that some of the refugees had totally different reasons for wishing to go back: many wanted to be reunited with wife and children, they felt lonely here (that was often the case), and some who had a fixed political outlook could not or actually were unable [9] to adapt to the conditions in the Soviet regime, where the commands and ordinances of the Communist Party were regarded as absolutely paramount and universally binding (see the opposite left page).670
Finally, after the commission in Przemyśl concluded its work, a large number of the refugees who “emigrated” to Przemyśl but did not cross the border – predominantly Jews – returned to Lvov with a promise that the commission would soon start operating in Lvov.
Registration of refugees on Zielona Street. Meanwhile, a new registration of the refugees was ordered. But that time (there were many registrations of the refugees) it was not fully official, as there were no announcements, no plan, [10] and no deadline. The news about the registration was spread through rumours about Soviet clerks registering refugees in the government building on Zielona Street that housed the offices of the People’s Militia and the NKVD. It was generally said that the registration was for return to the town where one had lived before the Polish–German war.
