| Paid help was given reluctantly and under
constant threat of denouncement |
Why should I
be grateful?..he loved money...he did it only for money; besides every week
he kept raising the price....He used to tell me that if the war would drag
on he would not keep me (Lola Freud, from When Light Pierced the Darkness) Quite often he would say that he did not know why he was sticking his neck out for Jews....He took us for a month but he never meant to keep us that long...he was trapped...there were times when we thought he was planning to be rid of us. We were a burden but it was not easy to do away with 8 people. (Roma Zelig, Ibid) |
| Some were honest and decent |
The motive for
keeping my wife and son was only money, quite a bit of money.....She treated
them kindly and stuck to her initial agreement, never raising her price....All
the time they were there, there was no mistreatment. (Mietek Korn,
Ibid) |
| Paid helpers often took advantage of
the Jews they were protecting and often appeared unconcerned about their
safety |
After their
arrival, the first peasant demanded that they hand over all their jewelry
and money. When he received nearly all of it ( some they had managed to hide)
he proceeded to search through their belongings. When he had convinced
himself [after a few days] that he had taken all the valuables, he asked
us to leave. He insisted that it was too dangerous and that we had
to go....When in desperation my mother asked him where we should go, he shrugged
his shoulders and said "That is not my responsibility." We still stayed
on for a while, but when he became insistent and began to threaten us, we
had to leave. We were afraid that he might kill us. One night
we simply slipped out of the barn (Ida Brot, Ibid) |
| With economic improvement, incentive for help disappeared |
Disengagement also
involved risk: Some reacted by asking the Jews to leave, some denounced,
some murdered, and some mistreated their wards (Nechama Tec, Ibid) |