Selected text
And I had come as a leftist, from the Soviet Union. So I ask them, ‘Which organization am I supposed to join?’ ‘The ZWM!’ they tell me. Alright, let it be the ZWM [41]. And the Jews were quarreling about who was to be in charge of distributing the things that are arriving, because through Gdansk there were arriving loads of stuff from the Joint [42]: bales of fabrics, machines, products, food, all for the Jewish survivors. Really great amounts of stuff. And, typically for the Jews, they started quarreling who was to be in charge of all that. And each party wanted to be important. Finally, a decision was made – I have no family, I’m young, I will be the storeman. Because half of all that stuff had already found its way to the market. They were already dealing, doing gesheft, business. And so shipments were arriving – there’s matzah, there’s canned fish, there’s kosher food. Loads and loads of stuff. You made lists and in the cooperatives, the factories, there were distributing the stuff according to those lists. But there were always some smooth operators who tried to get the stuff that wasn’t theirs.
Period
Interview
Feliks Nieznanowski