lots of flags with Nazi swastikas. The Polish population was able to adapt
to the new conditions quite quickly. Many of the Poles were trying to show
the Germans that in some respects they could even anticipate their actions.
Therefore, aside from swastikas and portraits of Hitler and Göring, signs
such as “Arische Firma”¹¹²⁸ and “Juden Zutritt verboten”¹¹²⁹ were put up in many
shop windows instead of the previous “Christian company” signs. As early
as on 10 September, an old Endecja election banner “Kalisz without Jews” [2]
mysteriously appeared on the corner of Kanonicka and 6 Sierpnia Streets,
stretching over the whole width of the street. This was how the Poles showed
the Germans their attitude toward the Jewish population. The attitude of the
Poles toward the Jews is vividly illustrated by the following fact, which was
often observed in Kalisz. Many Polish men and women, mostly labourers,
maids and servants, became acquainted with German soldiers. They used
those acquaintanceships in the following way. They went with the Germans
into Jewish shops (e.g. Siemiatycki’s shop) and they forced the Jews to give
them various merchandise for free or at a ridiculously low price. Some Polish
domestic servants brought gendarmes into their Jewish employers’ homes
and extorted payment of rather large sums of money by way of purported
compensation or debt repayment. This was how the Polish-Jewish relations
appeared to be in the presence of the German occupier. It would be a gross
exaggeration to claim that they were the reason for the anti-Jewish German
attitude. All in all, they might have contributed to the swifter introduction
of anti-Jewish ordinances by the German authorities.
Immediately after their takeover of Kalisz, the Germans arrested the
numerous Poles and Jews who remained in the town. The Jews returned after
5–6 weeks. They (among them Weingart, an oil mill owner from Górnośląska
Street 28) said that they had been taken to various towns and cities in
Germany and presented to their inhabitants with the following comment:
“Das sind die jüdischen Schweine, die zu den deutschen Soldaten geschossen [3]
haben.”¹¹³⁰ Immediately after the German army’s arrival, the soldiers began to
visit Polish and Jewish shops and requisition all kinds of merchandise, mostly
cotton goods. Those first requisitions affected the shops of Siemiatycki, Sender,
1128 (German) Aryan company.
1129 (German) No entry for Jews.
1130 (German, incorrect) These are the Jewish swines that shot at German soldiers.
