Soviet science from their desks, and promoted the ideals of socialist humanism were now looking at the nationalist bands’ excesses with indifference or even approval.
As soon as the Petlura Days ended, ominous posters announced that the Jewish population had to pay a contribution of 20 million roubles. Taking into consideration the situation of the Jewish population, the sum was enormous. The vast majority of the Jewish population had become complete paupers devoid of any means of subsistence. Agricultural estates, shops, any real estate, and factories had been subjected to general nationalisation during the Soviet administration. The contribution was to be collected by the newly established Jewish community, with Józef Parnas as its chairman. Everybody was aware of the consequences for failure to pay the contribution. [6] People sold everything they could at next to nothing – clothes, wedding rings, silver candlesticks, etc. They were paid 16 roubles for a gram of gold that is 3 zlotys (1.5 marks). Special agitators who volunteered to the Community to cooperate in collecting the contribution walked from flat to flat, warning people of imminent death in case they failed to pay the contribution. Even the poorest Jews gave everything they could, selling their shirts or items of everyday use. The deadline for the payment of the contribution was very short – only a few days. Christian usurers and traders bought items of clothing, furniture, and other objects from Jews for next to nothing, preying upon their poverty and misery. The sum was finally collected. There were instances of Poles donating money for the contribution. But everybody was aware that that dear peace would last only a few days and that the oppression, murders, and pogroms would resume. The day of 1 August ultimately shattered the hopes of the Ukrainians who had been dreaming about the establishment of Great Ukraine with German help. The Lvov, Stanisławów, and Tarnopol provinces were incorporated into the General Government as the Galicia District. The Ukrainian nationalists’ faces fell. The funniest was that the Ukrainian newspaper Lvivski Shchodenni Visti718 was forced to reprint an article written by a lecturer of the University of Berlin, Bauer, in which he claimed that the Ukrainians, being devoid of intelligentsia, were unable to govern themselves, that is, that in the best-case scenario they could only play the role of
