NEIGHBOURS ON THE EVE OF THE HOLOCAUST

Mark Paul

Positions of Authority and Privilege

It did not take long for the Jews to leave their mark on all aspects of life under the new regime. Although the top positions were reserved for Soviet bureaucrats, among whom were many Jews, the middle and lower administrative position were given over to local supporters. Jewish and Polish sources confirm that Jews filled these positions en masse.

Although Jewish historians claim that Jewish overrepresentation in administrative positions dropped dramatically after the first few months of Soviet rule, this has not been substantiated by any in-depth research.

As one shall see, many Jewish memoirs also dispute that assertion. It is true, however, that the Soviets were far more careful in designating candidates for "elected" positions. Ukrainians and Belorussians were favoured there for the sake of appearance, but these positions were largely ceremonial. Moreover, there was a large influx of Jews from the Soviet Union sent as tools of the newly imposed Soviet regime, including many members of the security apparatus.

According to historian Dov Levin:

... Many Soviet Jews were sent west to the annexed areas as administrative and economic clerks in the civil and military bureaucracies.
... Many were assigned key positions and ruled with a high hand. The locals [i.e. Jews] came to resent the arrogant, contemptuous "easterners", who habitually dissembled about the high standard of living in the USSR.

According to the Rohatyn Memorial Book:

... The Jews welcomed the Soviet soldiers openly ...
... Jews were employed by the Soviet officials in the administration and even in the local militia. Jews went gladly to these tasks ...
... Each of these artels [cartels, or workers' associations] or cooperatives was headed by ... in most cases a Jew.
... workers in the artels worked under the guidance of Jewish directors. Control over the factories was in the hands of the Party, which again had greater trust in the Jews than in the non-Jews.

In Dmytrow, near Radziechow:

... The Jews were elevated to government offices (treasury, courts, militia, schools, post office, county supervisor's office, etc.), and they were also employed to gather information [i.e., as informers] in the town and villages.

Most of the agitators in the campaign leading up to the sham vote sanctioning the annexation of Eastern Poland were Jews, both Soviet and local.

In Sambor, according to that town's Memorial Book:

... Many Jews joined city and government services. The Russians trusted the Jewish population more than the Poles and Ukrainians, and, therefore, the higher posts were allotted to Jews.

According to a Jewish source, in Stanislawow:

... At the outset of Soviet rule, several local Jewish communists worked in the interim town council, including A. Eckstein (vice mayor), Rozental (head of police), Kochman (his deputy), Mendel Blumenstein (head of the prison), Shkulnik (his deputy), and the lawyer Hausknecht (head of the post office). However, after the area was merged into the Ukrainian Republic, the Soviets from the east took over the senior positions, and the local communists were relegated to marginal [i.e. secondary - M.P.] roles.

The administrative positions in offices and factories were taken over by Jews and Ukrainians. The Poles were relegated to clerical positions and worked as labourers. The "workers' councils" were headed by party members sent from the Soviet Union for this purpose and, in some cases, by local Jews.

In Brzezany, the leading positions of authority were taken over by Jews:

... The first Soviet mayor of Brzezany was Kunio Grad, a Jew who had been a communist and a political prisoner before the war.
... Isaac Sauberberg, a Jewish ex-political prisoner, who was one of the most active members of the KPZU, the Communist Party of Western Ukraine in the area, was appointed head of the Financial Department.
... Kuba Winter, a Jew who had been active in distributing illegal communist propaganda ... became head of the Brzezany post office.
Itschie [Isaac Sauberberg] was appointed to several successive positions, and when the Soviets retreated in the summer of 1941, he and his family joined them.
... The most prominent Jewish communist in Brzezany was Elkana, or Kunio Grad. His family too, like Itschie Sauberberg's, was a traditional Jewish family. ... The peak of his career was his service as the first Soviet mayor of Brzezany in the fall of 1939, during the first weeks of the Soviet rule. He left Brzezany with the retreating Soviet administration in the summer of 1941. Kunio Grad was among the few Brzezany Jews who survived the war in Russia. Grad lived after the war in Poland and served as an officer with the ... Polish Security. Eventually, he emigrated to Canada and died there.

In Czortkow, according to a Jewish source:

... When the Jewish communists came home [after their release from jail], they helped to organize a new government system in our city. The Russian authorities appointed a Jewish mayor and he appointed many Jewish and Ukrainian communists to various top positions at city hall, police, fire, banking, and other institutions.
Within days, the police came at night, with prepared lists, to round up the Polish intelligentsia, government employees, army officers, and nationalists with their families were taken to the railway station. They were being expelled, and sent to Siberia. The same transport also included a few rich Jews who owned large stores, but their families were left behind.
With the reorganization of city life the Russians used the Jews in every aspect of commerce, banking, and reorganization of the villages according to their system. The educated Ukrainians took part in the reorganization, but the Poles had difficulties getting a decent job. They were considered second class citizens ...

According to a Jewish source, in Zaleszczyki:

... A group of Jewish communists held key positions in the new regime. When the war with Germany broke out [June 1941], a small number of Jews - mainly Jewish communist activists - fled to the USSR. Scared of revenge by the Germans and Ukrainian nationalists, they fled to Chernowitz to hide.

The Jews in Skalat adjusted quickly and well to the new conditions:

... It was quite understandable that the Jews were able to adjust more easily to the new life, since the Soviet regime trusted the Jewish population more than it did the Gentiles. A significant portion of the Jews - the workers, the artisans and the working intelligentsia, therefore, took on leading roles in the economic and social life of the town. They held important positions in cooperatives and in communal and public institutions. No one group could have adjusted better to the newly created conditions of life that the Jews.

According to a Jewish testimony from Kamien Koszyrski in Polesia:

... We formed a self-defense unit to maintain order in the town ...
We destroyed the ammunition left behind by the retreating [Polish] armies.
At the same time, Russian forces entered Poland. ... Whatever weapons were left, we turned over to them; we disbanded our self-defense unit and many of us enlisted in their militia.

In Krzemieniec:

... With the Russian conquest of the town [Sept. 22, 1939] a Jew, Moshe Sugan, a local communist, was appointed mayor ...
In that time period a Jew, Avraham Rayz, was appointed chief of police ...
When the Red Army arrived on the 22, it was received cheerfully.
... a "temporary administration" was formed immediately - under the authority of the Russian army and politicians - to which were added some local clerks from the Jewish intelligentsia, and the communists who were released from jails and returned to Kremenets.
In general, the new regime showed a tendency to favor the Jews who were an intellectual and devoted element, while among the Polish, many were members of nationalistic movements.
... In those days they said that during the Soviet regime ... Jews received jobs in offices; Poles were permitted to deal in second-hand clothes ..., Ukrainians were permitted to have their signs in Ukrainian ...
At the end of 1939 the citizens were ordered to vote, for or against, annexing the city to the Ukrainian-Soviet republic. Obviously the Jews voted for the annexation.
... The termination of national Jewish life came without the need for action by the authorities. The Jews understood that under Soviet rule, public activities were not acceptable, and they had better concern themselves with their personal needs only.
... All the Zionist and other organizations ceased to exist. All the skilled people devoted themselves to adapting to the new way of life.
... the Zionist Hebrews are useful and faithful subjects to the Soviet regime.
And, indeed, the Jews adapted themselves quickly to life under the new regime.
... Key positions were given, generally, to party members who came from eastern Russia, and were "Easterners" ("Vastatshniki"), and were assisted by some local communists. For example, Meir Pinchuk (a former member of Hashomer Hatzair turned communist), was appointed in charge of the High School, and his wife of other schools.
... It is interesting to note that some of the Jewish laborers who were leaning towards communism, thought that now they would be relieved from labor and would be given positions in government institutions, but the new authorities preferred choosing from the intelligentsia, and rejected them completely, or gave them a minor job, like in charge of a storage plant.

According to a Polish source:

... either Bolsheviks or local communists, most of them Jews, were appointed to the higher offices in the city.
... In the New Year (1940), a Polish ten-year school was created. Pinczuk [Pinchuk], a Jew and a communist, was appointed director.

It is known from another source, that the said Pinczuk had no prior background in the field of education.

Elsewhere in that county: ... They abolished Polish offices and put Bolsheviks and Jews in place of Poles.

Janina Sulkowska describes the conditions that pervaded every aspect of life in Krzemieniec:

... For Poles and those among the Ukrainian and Jewish communities who opposed the occupation, life was hell. The NKVD made good use of collaborators especially the local Communist Party which was almost exclusively Jewish. From headquarters in the Treasury Office, lavishly refurbished with plundered riches, the NKVD would decide the fate of victims over vodka and fine food - aided by Jews who, for reasons ranging from politics to settling old scores, turned in their neighbours. They eagerly fulfilled the duty of every party member to spy on and denounce the citizenry, resulting in brutal interrogations and show trials where the usual sentence was eight years at hard labour in Siberia. Even walking down the street was an ordeal as the Russian secret police and the Jewish or Ukrainian militia would arrest a person on any pretext - even for being well-dressed.
What particularly disturbed me was the humiliation of my beloved Lyceum which was revered as a great Polish institution that welcomed students of all backgrounds: rich or poor, Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish. The Soviets methodically transformed it into a dreary and repressive model based on their Soviet system, and this required mass firings and arrests of Polish professors, staff and pupils. New directors and teachers were appointed from local unqualified communists whose main attribute was loyalty to their Soviet overlords, and later personnel would be brought in from the USSR.
I could never forgive those Krzemiencian Jews, including friends, who played a great part in the destruction of an institution from which some had themselves graduated. Many Jews and Ukrainians however mourned the loss of this respected school, even as new students, Jewish and Ukrainian, were brought in to eradicate the despised Polish presence.
... My younger sister Wanda brought back horror stories of scholastic life under the vicious directorship of Pinchas Pinczuk [Pinchuk], a Jewish former student of the Lyceum who had been imprisoned in Poland for his communist activities, and who now used Jewish students to betray Polish classmates who wore religious symbols or were patriotic, often with deadly consequences for the student and his or her family. As the deportations started, fewer and fewer of Wanda's classmates would appear in class.
... The Soviets emptied the school libraries and dumped the books into a pile for destruction, while the priceless Lyceum Library of 40 000 books was put into the hands of a young Jew who functioned as head censor and book-burner. The duties of school curator fell to two local Jews, one who was deemed qualified as he was an accountant with the publisher of Lyceum texts and material. The position of school inspector was taken over by a young Jewish female doctor who demanded that students donate money to the "International Organizations of Revolutionary Help" - with dire consequences for those who didn't pay. Jewish "assistants" in uniforms spread terror and enforced the new order which would see the number of Polish students decline drastically, including the arrest of a Polish professor and several students for belonging to "a counter-revolutionary organization".
... My mother, brother and I returned in a dejected mood from the election for delegates to the Soviet of the Union, in which the citizenry was "encouraged" by teenage Jewish thugs working as "propagandists" to publicly deposit a pre-filled ballot directly into the box - with a warning not to write anything on it.
... We immediately began preparing a package of food for my father [Jan Sulkowski, the former county secretary], who had been arrested on Good Friday [1940] and was spending his third day at NKVD headquarters. We knew his arrest had been inevitable, but it was a shock when they bundled him off like some terrible criminal. Little did we know of the beatings he was presently undergoing. Later, he would face a sham trial conducted by the Soviets and be sentenced to hard labour - on "evidence" given by his Jewish and Ukrainian employees. [Jan Sulkowski would be deported to the Gulag, where he died never again seeing his wife or youngest daughter]

The phenomenon of appointing unqualified Jews to teaching positions, mentioned above, was widespread. Historian Dov Levin concedes that:

... hundreds of young Jews, some lacking in higher education, passed courses of several weeks' duration and were sent to work at all levels in the school system.

In Lomza, where denunciations were frequent, virtually all of the administrative offices and positions were occupied by Jews. In September of 1940, a high-ranking NKVD official from that town averred:

... The Jews supported us and only they continued to be visible. It also became fashionable for every director of an institution or business concern to boast that they no longer employed even one Pole.

In the nearby village of Przytuly, where the Jews greeted the Soviets with flowers:

... Only Jews were put in positions of authority. All the Poles, who worked in the commune office, were arrested. The Jews formed committees and persecuted the Poles. The head of the committee was Wilenski. My brother had to hide on account of him because they wanted to shoot him. They often carried out searches and always at night. Many civil servants were arrested and shipped out without a trace. Property owned by the Poles was taken away and divided among the Jews and even among some Poles who conformed to Russian instructions.

In Stawiski:

... The executive authority was handed over to the dregs of society from the national minorities [the only minority in that area was the Jews - M.P.]. The result was often frequent arrests, confiscations, evictions from homes, destruction of national monuments. The pre-election agitation was well organized; it started off with a thorough census of the local population.
The first to be arrested were civil servants such as the mayor, the commune head, postal workers, government clerks, policemen, teachers, officers and the civilian population.
... I remember well the first deportation in February 1940, the first transport of our population. A long string of wagons loaded with belongings and people.
The election committee was made up of NKVD members and local people who were favourably disposed toward Soviet authority. They were mostly Jews.

In Kolno, according to a Jewish source:

... Former Jewish communists - Marvid, Shlomo Krelenstein, Yissacher Niphke, Greenbaum and others, cooperated, out of ideological convictions and sincere faith, with the new rulers.
... Zerach Stavisky, Akiva Kashipopa and some other Jewish fellows were employed by the Soviet militia ...
Several "artels" were established, including a tailors' artel directed by Michael Borech, and a bakers' artel headed by Teitelbaum, as well as shoemakers', carpenters', locksmiths' and other craftsmen's artels.
Mendel Sokol, a former merchant, was held in high esteem by the new authorities and was appointed by the Soviet municipality to be superintendent of the construction of the new hospital, the public baths and other institutions. Later, they even entrusted him with the trench-fortifications, the front-line of defence near the town opposite the East-Prussian border.
The first mass arrests occurred on the eve of March 13, 1940 and continued into the following day. Sixty-three families were seized ...
Afterwards arrests followed systematically.

In Kolaki Koscielne, near Zambrow:

... the Soviet authorities took over the state offices ...
Next they created a militia consisting of ruffians, mostly from the Russian and Jewish population.

About Zabludow, near Bialystok, where there had been a mixed civil militia comprised of Poles and Jews before the arrival of the Soviets, a Jewish source states:

... The civil and half army government settled in the old city hall (the magistrate): drafted civilian Soviets, most of them party members ruled there, and their leader, as we found out, was a Jew by the name Margolin.
... Like every new and strange regime, the Soviets needed collaborators (this time upon ideological background) from the population, which they could find easily, especially among us Jews, and from the White Russians, who saw themselves as the main partners in the upcoming changes.
... Their innocence was based on revenge, and not on ideology ...
Most of the people that tried to be part of the new government came from the poor population ...
The town filled up with military personnel's family and Soviet clerks. Over time some of them became friendly, especially [toward] the Jews. The Polish, except for a few of them, stayed away from the Soviets and saw the Jews as collaborators ...

In Zambrow, according to a Jewish source:

... The Russians entered Zambrov in September 1939. Their first act was the appointment of Fishman (Kaufmann's son-in-law) as Commissar of Zambrov.

According to a Jewish source, in Zareby Koscielne, near Ostrow Mazowiecka, where ... first meeting with the Red Army and the Jewish young men was described as "ecstatic", a "revolutionary committee" and Jewish militia ("young men with red armbands and carrying Polish rifles") were soon in control.

... During the Russian occupation, the cultural and community life in Zaromb was administered by a committee: Chaim Mayer Faynztak, Leyzer Levin, Leytche Fridman, Eliohu Pravde and Rokhel Dishke. The Polish shoemaker, Vishilitzki, worked with them.

Jews in small towns felt particularly secure. In Nadworna, about 50 kilometres south of Stanislawow, the entire city administration was taken over by local Jews (one Pole, who wore a red star on his hat to blend in, was greeted as "tovarishch" by Jewish militiamen he encountered during his short stay there).

Another Jew recalled:

... My father did not vote [in the Soviet elections], but we were not afraid that anything would happen to us, since Bocki was a small town, where power was in the hands of the local communists.

In Bransk:

... When Rabbi Benizon Kagan ... applied to the local labor exchange for work, the bureau director told him that the matter could be arranged only if the rabbi declared himself to be an atheist. After complaints and appeals to the top Party echelons, Rabbi Kagan was assigned to a petty bookkeeping position and was even excused from work on the Sabbath and Jewish festivals.

In the Dzisna county:

... The bolsheviks established "selsovety" [village "soviets"], "raikomy" [regional (county) committees] and other committees which the Jews, local communists, and those who arrived from Russia joined. The first founder of [the] militia was a Jew Srol Zelikman, a local citizen.
... The bolsheviks persecuted the Poles a lot in prisons. In Wilejka, where the prison was, one could hear shouts and moans, so in order not to hear them the bolsheviks started up engines, to drown out the moans.

In Lubcz, near Nowogrodek, according to a Jewish source:

... Not only was the chairman of the local soviet Jewish; so were the managers of all the retail shops, without exception. The same was true for a local winery and canned food factory, the district office, the chief accounting division of the local tax office, and a footwear cooperative. Moreover, a majority of the 200 Soviet clerks, who were brought in to fill positions of responsibility, were Jews.

In Kleck, near Nieswiez, not far from the Soviet border:

... The Jews cheered the Russians as their liberators from Polish Fascism, which had made anti-Semitism an official policy between the two World Wars.
... The gentiles on the other hand, were dismayed and badly frightened.
.." the communist youth, suddenly promoted from "illegals" to "guardians of law and order", came out of hiding; they marched through the streets with rifles given them by the Russians ...
... large numbers of the poorer Jews had marked pro-communist sympathies and the majority of the commissars in the towns, as well as the "politruks" [political commissars], were Jews.

A Jew by the name of Matvei Kolotov (Motl Kolotnitsky) was the Soviet functionary sent to Slonim to set up a civil administration. The building that had once housed the Polish Savings Fund was taken over by the "Gosbank" (the Soviet state bank). Kolotov replaced the Polish clerks with: ... Jewish boys and girls, with a few Russian clerks thrown in. Several newly appointed "Gosbank" officials were former executives of the Jewish Commercial Bank and the local Jewish People's Bank. These two institutions and all their employees had been transferred to new "Gosbank" branch.

In Drohiczyn, as in many other localities, Polish teachers were dismissed from their positions and replaced by Jewish ones who often lacked the basic qualifications.

According to a Jewish testimony from the Lwow region:

... From the start, the Jews occupied most of the lower positions in the Soviet administration, although the key posts were always in the hands of Soviet officials.

A Jew from Lwow recalled:

... Workers councils were introduced in all factories and workshops, and a civilian militia was organized. The members of this militia were chiefly workers and young Jews.

Another Jew from Lwow wrote:

... At that time being Jewish in Lwow made life easier. The Soviet authorities did not trust the Poles nor the Ukrainians who dreamed of a free Ukraine ...
There remained the Jews. They were the only ones who greeted the Red Army with flowers, like saviours.
... Ninety percent of the members of our (engineering) association were Jews. A similar situation prevailed in all of the associations and cooperatives in Lwow which encompassed all of the branches of industry, production and trade. Is it surprising that the Poles, who endeavoured not to cooperate with the Russians in accordance with instructions from the Polish government in London, regarded the Jews as collaborators, as Bolshevik agents?
... Our entire technical staff sat around their desks almost idle.

Another Jew reported that many Jews were employed in all of the offices in the city and that Jews were put in charge of most of the stores, warehouses and business establishments.

In Drohobycz, and doubtless in many other localities, Jews used their positions as overseers of warehouses to siphon off foodstuff and products that soon became scarce for the average consumer.

Moreover, the often-repeated claim that Soviet policies resulted in the ruination of the Jewish merchant class and tradespeople is an unwarranted generalization that must be looked at in context. The bulk of the smaller shopkeepers and self-employed artisans generally fared well, and even the owners of larger enterprises often remained in place as directors of their nationalized firms.

According to Dov Levin:

... Many Jews found positions planning and implementing the nationalization policy, either as "trustees" of the regime or as experts. The latter ... included former owners of plants and businesses. Some of the non-Jewish experts (Poles in the western Ukraine and western Belorussia, for example) were reluctant to fill the positions offered them for national and political reasons; in some areas this gave Jewish officials access to prominent economic positions (at least at first) at a rate far exceeding their share of the population.
A conspicuous example of continuity was the baking industry in Lvov [Lwow], which had been dominated by Jews until the war. The bakeries were nationalized in late 1939, aggregated into a single municipal enterprise, and converted into branches of this municipal enterprise for baked goods.
... Apart from this largely representative position [i.e. the head of the enterprise - a Ukrainian Soviet], all the work - management, planning, and direct labor at the ovens - remained in Jewish hands.
Former bakery owners ... now wage earners, served as work foremen, among other functions.
In Wolhynia [Volhynia], and other areas of western Belorussia and Lithuania, many Jews continued working in the lumber industry. Now, however, they held governmental inspection and management positions that formerly had been reserved for Poles and Lithuanians ...
Since few non-Jews were engaged as artisans in the towns and cities, quite a few artels were Jewish through and through.
... Leadership in the small artels was usually exercised by local Jews.
In December, 1939, "Der Stern" published a letter signed by Jews from western Ukraine, thanking Comrade Stalin 'for having saved [them] from the economic distress and unemployment' that prevailed before the war in Poland. ... Although the initiative behind these notices had presumably been taken by official agencies, it seems likely that, at least in the initial period, these pieces reflected some degree of genuine, sincere identification of certain Jewish groups with the policies of the new regime.
One cannot deny, however, that many Jews derived many direct and indirect advantages from the new regime. For one thing, Jewish youth gained access to extensive opportunities for study. For another, the new regimen was highly beneficial to wage earners in certain industries.
... It therefore comes as no surprise that the working class and other rank-and-file harbored genuine sympathy for the new regime - at least in the first stages of sovietization - along with gratitude and expectations of further economic improvement. Most of the artisans, too, suffered no detriment; indeed, some found themselves better off than before.

Despite claims to the contrary, social justice sorely eluded Soviet-occupied Eastern Poland in many respects, as illustrated by the following example from Lwow, a city with a Polish majority (Ukrainians predominated in the countryside).

After the Soviet takeover Poles were largely excluded from higher education:

... The entire character of the University of Lwow changed during the Soviet occupation. Prior to the war, the percentage of students broke down as follows: Poles - 70%; Ukrainians - 15%; Jews - 15%. Under the Soviets, the percentage changed to 3%, 12%, and 85% respectively.

Contemporary accounts of Jews, gathered in the underground archives of the Warsaw Ghetto under the direction of Emanuel Ringelblum, reinforce this picture and attest to the privileged position enjoyed by the Jewish population under Soviet rule. These accounts are important for three reasons. One, they were usually written by educated people shortly after the events they witnessed and are generally more sophisticated than memoirs and accounts written by local residents long after war and through the prism of the Holocaust or Gulag. Two, they were written by outsiders who tend to be more objective about local conditions than the residents themselves, who are generally absorbed with the fate of their own families and communities. Three, the fact that these themes appear in a number of accounts (though not all - doubtless because the observers were reluctant to write honestly about such prejudicial occurrences or were simply unconcerned about them) is a clear indication of how glaring conditions must have been to the perceptive onlooker: there would have been no conceivable reason for them to have embellished or exaggerated what they saw.

The following accounts are illustrative.

A Jewish resident of Bialystok noted:

... In practice, in filling positions and offices, Jews were somewhat favoured because they were trusted more than Poles who were treated with some disrespect.

Of the 267 students, accepted into the Pedagogical Institute in this predominantly Polish region, 210 were Jews and 29 Belorussians. Almost all of the principals of the Polish-language schools that remained open were replaced by non-Poles, a very large percentage of them Jews.

According to Polish reports, by December 1939 the entire administration in Bialystok was in the hands of officials from Soviet Belorussia and Jewish communists, both local people and refugees from the German occupation zone. With this realignment, the attitude of the Jews also changed to one of hostility, contempt, and derision. Only a very small portion of the Jewish population behaved properly.

In Wilno, the Soviets with the help of local communists, mainly Jews, seized Polish administrative, agricultural and financial institutions. According to Dr. Shlomo Katz, who served in the "workers' guard", at least 80 percent of the guards were Jewish, and a significant number held administrative positions. In many cases, attitudes changed overnight, and Jews ignored or even turned on their Polish friends and neighbours. There was also open rejoicing at the defeat of Poland. Your rule is over, an elated Jew was heard to say in a crowded train. We will now be in charge.

A young Jew, who lived in Wilno recalled:

... The Bolsheviks were generally disposed favourably toward the Jews and had total confidence in them. They were assured of their entire sympathy and devotion. For that reason they put Jews in all the managerial and responsible positions and did not entrust them to the Poles who had occupied them previously.

A Jewish woman from Wilno summed up the situation candidly and quite aptly when she wrote:

... Under Bolshevik rule an anti-Jewish current grew significantly. In large measure the Jews themselves were responsible for this ...
At every turn they mocked Poles, yelled out that their Poland was no more ...
The Jewish communists dallied with the patriotic sentiments of Poles, denounced their illegal conversations, pointed out Polish officers and former government officials, freely worked for the NKVD, and took part in arrests.
... The Bolsheviks on the whole treated Jews favourably, had complete faith in them and were confident of their devoted sympathy and trust. For that reason they put Jews in all of the leading and influential positions which they would not entrust to Poles, who formerly occupied them.

In Grodno, a Jewish source recorded:

... Poles were denied access to senior public-service positions ... and former senior officials and leading personalities were arrested ... and exiled to remote regions of Russia together with their families.

In the place of Poles, whom the Soviets did not trust, came Jews, in whom the Soviets had "complete confidence". According to historian Evgenii Rozenblat, 405 out of 564 positions in local industry, or approximately 72 percent, were allocated to Jews.

According to another Jewish observer from Grodno:

... When the Bolsheviks entered Polish territory, they were very mistrustful of the Polish population, and they fully trusted the Jews. They deported to Russia the more influential Poles and those who before the war held important jobs, and all of the offices were filled mostly with Jews, who everywhere were entrusted with positions of power. For these reasons, the Polish population generally assumed a very hostile attitude.
... It needs to be mentioned that the Jews themselves stirred up this hatred because as soon as the Russian armies entered, they showed their disregard for the Poles and often humiliated them. The coming of the Bolsheviks was greeted by Jews with great joy. Now they felt proud and secure, they almost considered themselves in charge of the situation; towards the Poles they were condescending and arrogant, and they often let them feel their powerlessness and scorned them because of it. In Grodno there were numerous occurrences, when a Polish woman approached a Jewish vegetable vendor who refused to sell to her: 'Get out of here, you Pollack, I don't want to know you.' There were many Jews who at any opportunity took special delight in mentioning to Poles that their time was over, that now nothing depended on them, and that they had to obey the Soviet authority.
The economic situation of the Jews in the occupied territory was much better than that of the Polish population. While the Poles had to earn their living through hard work, the Jews took the better jobs and were employed in lighter work. Poles were mostly employed in factories and "kolkhozes", whereas Jews preferred to work as clerks in warehouses and shops, etc. Even if salaries in these positions were officially much lower than those of workers in factories, while working as clerks, shop assistants, and warehouse attendants they had the opportunity to take advantage of their skills in [illegal] trading and speculation; they manipulated in various ways and thus attained significant private incomes.

As described above, Jewish vendors often refused to sell goods to Poles. Edmund Bosakowski from Bialozorka, near Krzemieniec, recounts that a Jewish woman who ran the local cooperative angrily motioned to him to leave the store after addressing him in an ostentatious and derogatory manner and in Ukrainian: ... I don't sell to Lakhs! Had a Pole spoken derogatory words such as these to a Jew, the Pole would have been arrested. On the other hand, Jews could and did address Poles in this fashion with impunity.

Jewish youths in Wilno excelled in throwing Poles out of food lines. The harassment was so blatant that Soviet functionaries felt compelled to come to the assistance of Poles.

On the other hand, Poles, who were often underemployed, had to resort to selling their belongings (jewelry, clothing, etc.) to Jewish black marketeers for a fraction of their value in order to purchase needed food supplies. It appears to have been a widespread phenomenon that Jews tried to take advantage of the dire situation of many Christians by buying up their possessions for a mere pittance. That was often the fate of property that had been seized from Polish deportees and auctioned off.

In some localities Poles were evicted from their homes which were then taken over by Jews (e.g. in Jaremecz and Mikuliczyn). When the village of Milkow was cleared of its Polish inhabitants (they were deported by cattle car to Bessarabia in the dead of winter in January 1940), Jews descended on the village with their carriages and dismantled and plundered what remained. In many cases, Polish property was simply confiscated by Jewish militiamen or by Jewish neighbours, who had ostensibly taken it for "safekeeping".

The following testimony is from the small town of Telechany, in Polesia:

... We lived in Telechany, near Pinsk where my father, Stefan Boratynski, was a judge in the municipal court.
... My father always purchased cigarettes and other small items he needed from a Jew named Szamszel.
... My mother also made her purchases in a Jewish shop next door ...
... Before the war, these Jews behaved in a very friendly manner, but as soon as the Bolsheviks arrived, they joined forces with them. They pretended to be friendly, but in an underhanded way they "informed" us of what might happen and offered their help.
... Right after the entry of the Bolsheviks, some Jews told my parents that they should hide their clothing because it would, in all likelihood, be taken from us. I remember very well packing suits and fur coats belonging to my parents ... Two huge suitcases (that folded twice) were taken by these Jews for safekeeping.
Soon after another man arrived - sent, it appears, by these Jews - who told us to get ready by evening a desk and two more suits which would be "borrowed". By November [1939] we were living in two nearly empty rooms. Our furniture was "borrowed" and some people had occupied the remainder of the dwelling.
The situation became progressively worse since we had to live from something. My mother approached Szamszel to return the clothing he had taken for safekeeping. This exchange probably lasted for a few days and finally he told her that he would not return anything. It was all his and we shouldn't make any claims or things might get worse.
What was "worse" actually occurred on December 21, when my father was taken away. Two days later he was shipped out of Telechany; to this day I do not know where he was murdered.
In April 1940, my mother and I were deported to Kazakhstan, where we spent six years.
Szamszel and others like him remained in Telechany.

A Jew by the name of Jozef Kohn headed up a "revolutionary committee", which greeted the Red Army as it entered Sniatyn through triumphal gates erected by local Jews and communists. His wife, also an ardent communist who ran a kindergarten before the war, led her prepped-up young students to the spectacle. Kohn was eventually arrested in 1940 for stealing property that he had confiscated from nationalized Jewish businesses, an apparent "victim" of his fellow Jews' wrath. Kohn and his wife survived their deportation and returned after the war to Stalinist Poland, where they received plum government positions. Nothing is known of Jews suffering punishment for stealing from Poles.

Jews also used their privileged positions to push their weight around and openly to deride Poles. In Klewan, near Rowne, line-ups for bread that formed at four o'clock in the morning were watched over by Jewish militiamen who would beat up or throw people out of line arbitrarily.

A Polish woman from Rozyszcze, who had waited five hours in a line-up to purchase some meat, lost her turn when a Jewish woman let in another Jew who bought the last piece. When the Polish woman complained, she was called a "Polish mug, whose time had come to an end". A young girl recalled, how she was pulled out of a food line by her hair by a Jewish woman who screamed at her: ... Your days are over. It's now our turn and there's no room for you here.

Even Jewish children readily succumbed to the temptation of using their junior positions to ridicule and harass their Polish schoolmates.

In Krzemieniec, Polish students wearing miniature Polish Eagles under their lapels were accosted by Jewish students, now young Communist Pioneers with red bandannas, who openly mocked the emblem of Poland, their former country. Take off that rooster, one of them snapped. Needless to say, Jews faced no sanctions for such all-too-frequent anti-Polish outbursts.

Jewish accounts from the Ringelblum archives, gathered during the early years of the war, attest to the fact that, contrary to the assertions made by Jewish historians, the Jews were not only privileged at the outset, but retained their privileged position throughout the Soviet occupation.

One Jewish account from Lwow states:

... The attitude of other nationalities toward the Jews was strained throughout this period to some degree, and this was brought about exclusively by the fact that Jews pushed to take over the leading positions. [Until April 1941] ...the majority of the better jobs were filled by Jews.

Foreign observers saw matters much the same way. The British Consul from Galati, Romania, reported that: ... Jews received preferential treatment and were given administrative posts.

This favoured status became a source of pride for many local Jews:

... We were entirely happy to see Poles in their now lowly position. Our former rulers were brought down to size and humiliated.

A Jewish refugee from Lodz conceded that Jews:

... often trifled with Poles in a very loathsome way and the expression 'your days are passed' was particularly abused.

While allowing Jews - who were very visible in the official propaganda apparatus and used their positions to the fullest - free range to publicly deride Poland and denigrate the Poles as cruel exploiters of the underprivileged classes, the Soviets punished perceived anti-Jewish slights with five years' imprisonment on the ground of spreading ethnic hatred.

In some cities (e.g. Stryj, Kalusz), Poles were even forbidden to reside in certain areas. After being evicted from their homes, these were taken over by non-Poles.

POLISH-JEWISH RELATIONS UNDER SOVIET OCCUPATION, 1939-1941
POLAND'S ETHNIC MINORITIES AND THE NAZI-SOVIET OCCUPATION OF POLAND

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