Jews, by the power of which the latter were no longer seen as human beings.
It was as a Christian that Mrs X. was instinctively strongly opposed to it.
My unexpected return (as well as the return of her Polish husband) made
her happy beyond words, because she was afraid that my wife could not bear
the lack of communication from me for much longer. Having heard the news
about the many people killed and wounded in the towns of Brzeziny Łódzkie
and Rawa Mazowiecka, my wife had continually checked hospitals and cemeteries,
constantly reading lists of dead and wounded.
On the fourth day after returning to Łódź I went to the office. Evidently
only a handful of my colleagues had come back. There was little work to do
and it was somehow difficult to focus on it, due to the uncertainty of tomorrow.
We knew that Jewish companies were doomed, although we did not know
when and in what form it would come to pass. However, due to both the commands
of the occupying forces and the requirements of life, we needed to
continue working, using up the raw materials we had and writing countless
reports for the occupying authorities. Our staff was mixed.
[3] The Poles were on good terms with the Jews, but the situation with
the Germans became tense and uncertain quite soon, and most of my fellow
workers were simply afraid of their German colleagues. We also had German
technical directors. Typical city-dwellers — they had a great dislike of the
Jews, although they were always more than willing to do business with them.
One of those German directors, Mr V., a wealthy, university-educated man, did
not become an ‘opportunistic German,’ as the Reichsdeutsche would later call
local Germans, the so-called Volksdeutsche. Although life hit him hard when
he lost his elder son in the war — a student, a handsome and very fine young
man — he did not forsake his humanity, and after Poland had been defeated,
he did not seek revenge on the Polish guards and labourers, who at the end
of August 1939 had threatened to throw him out of the factory, to cart him
away on a wheelbarrow, etc. Not only did the harsh anti-Jewish policy implemented
in Łódź not appeal to him, but Mr V. was clearly upset by it and — to
the extent that it was possible, he warned us that very severe persecution [x]⁹³
awaited the Jews, and that we should try (as far as possible) to prepare ourselves
in advance. That man turned out to be an individual with strong
moral principles and he renounced the comforts of the opportune situation,
93 [x] defeat.
