Czarny rynek w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie 1939–1945. Scena i aktorzy

Abstract

The black market in the General Government 1939–1945. The stage and the actors The author of the article explores a wide range of black market phenomena under the German occupation in 1939–1945. The black market was such a vast and varied phenomenon in occupied Poland that the author has been forced to limit himself to the General Government (GG). Both in areas incorporated in 1939 into the Reich and those occupied in 1939–1941 by the USSR, where the economic freedom of former Polish citizens was reduced to a minimum, control stricter and rations bigger, illegal trade was limited and usually took place in small, trustworthy groups. On the other hand, in GG, especially in Warsaw, it became a specialist discipline, often practised professionally. In GG the turnover on the black market was higher as was the number of actors and degree of overtness — the exchange of goods and services took place in public, while the buyers and the sellers usually did not know each other. The article focuses of the black market strategies of the Poles (divided into professional and social groups) and the Germans. It should be noted that the participants in the unofficial economy also included other nationalities — Jews, Ukrainians or Belarusians — who require a separate study, however.