Hrubieszów was cordoned off by the gendarmerie and tightly surrounded
with hand machine guns and as a result of exportation of food products to
the starving regions of the Eastern Małopolska.²⁹²
The middlemen between the countryside and the town were Jews. This
should be no [2] surprise. The German system of ruthless exploitation of the
countryside allows no free trade whatsoever. Peasants, mostly Ukrainian,
have to deliver more and more levies, that is, specified amounts of produce and
cattle at official prices, and they are left with just enough to keep their farms
going. The attitude of both Polish and Ukrainian peasants toward the occupation
authorities is simply hostile. Fearing “undercover agents” and Gestapo
functionaries, peasants do not want to even hear about selling their produce
to people without armbands, that is, non-Jews. They do trust Jews. And this
is why Jews act as middlemen between the country and the town. Peasants
buy all the products they need from Jews, such as machines, textiles, shoes,
etc. And this is also the source of the fierce hatred of the town’s population,
both Ukrainian and Polish, toward the Jews. It seems to me that the matter
of competition is of the essence here. The Ukrainian and Polish population
of the town simply sees the Jews as their competitors, who take away
their means of livelihood.
The attitude of the Judenrat toward the German authorities was correct,
of course, in return for sufficient amount of real tea, coffee, and cocoa,
high-top boots, fur coats, gold, and other “gifts.” I know nothing about the
Polish intelligentsia, but I had some contact with the local Ukrainian one.
I used to visit the Waszczuks, both teachers, and a Ukrainian Orthodox priest,
whose surname I do not know. The Waszczuks deeply sympathised with Jews.
The main tenor of what they said about them was that “after all, Jews are people
too.” Their attitude toward the Germans was hostile. Even though they
were hostile toward the Soviet system, they yearned for the Soviets to win,
because, as they explained, first of all, they were Germany’s enemies, and
secondly, we “would manage to get along with them.” I could sense that they
felt a close bond with the USSR. The same could be said about the Orthodox
priest. He manifested his positive attitude toward Jews in charging them
next to nothing for the bread people brought to him for consecration. Aside
292 Here and below, the handwritten inserts are underlined by the editors. Małopolska (literally, Little Poland) is a historical name for a territory around Kraków.
