Germany's rule in WW2 period Ukraine
Germany's bureaucracy had no mercy for Ukraine taken by the Wehrmacht back in 1940s. Until the time when the soviets finally ironed out their strategy and tactics - the Germans forced the new citizens of the Reich to do something absolutely inhuman - pay taxes. There were other, less horrbile crimes of Germans against the local slavs, like summary executions of anyone who looked at the Germans funny, and taking local slavic women as sex pets to the German officers.
The taxes were collected in both the Polish currency - zloty, used in the areas next to Poland - and the left-over sovier rubbles. Money were money for the Third Reich, they didn't disciminate too much, as long as they forced the new Reich's citizens to pay up. And paying up they did - especially when the opportunistic merchants came to the villages to do some business. An archived soviet document showed how much the Ukrainian merchants expected their fellow Ukrainians to pay while being citizens of the Third Reich. The pricelist is important because the Third Reich expected the locals to supply the Wehrmacht with food, and if a peasant happened to have a cow that was too weak to give milk - the peasant had to buy milk at the village's market, which made a great opportunity for the resellers.
How many of them were kosher is unknown, but given Germany's policy about the jews at that time - it's logical to assume that Ukrainians were robbing Ukrainians via the market pricing. Interestingly enough, the Third Reich practiced the same "command economy" the USSR did. Makes me curious what did the Ukrainians think about this detail back then.
The taxes were collected in both the Polish currency - zloty, used in the areas next to Poland - and the left-over sovier rubbles. Money were money for the Third Reich, they didn't disciminate too much, as long as they forced the new Reich's citizens to pay up. And paying up they did - especially when the opportunistic merchants came to the villages to do some business. An archived soviet document showed how much the Ukrainian merchants expected their fellow Ukrainians to pay while being citizens of the Third Reich. The pricelist is important because the Third Reich expected the locals to supply the Wehrmacht with food, and if a peasant happened to have a cow that was too weak to give milk - the peasant had to buy milk at the village's market, which made a great opportunity for the resellers.
How many of them were kosher is unknown, but given Germany's policy about the jews at that time - it's logical to assume that Ukrainians were robbing Ukrainians via the market pricing. Interestingly enough, the Third Reich practiced the same "command economy" the USSR did. Makes me curious what did the Ukrainians think about this detail back then.
