Towards the end of 1930s, Poland was under "Government of Colonels." During this period the Jewish community, which constituted approximately ten percent of Poland's total population, was in an extremely difficult position. New laws were being issued daily, laws which were strangling the economic and cultural life of the Jewish minority.
After Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933, the Poles were only too happy to step up their acts of anti-Semitism. One very popular ploy was to accuse a Jew of insulting the Polish people or the Polish government. The accused would be brought before a judge, usually an anti-Semite himself, who would almost always sentence the Jew to a lengthy prison term.
The Polish Treasury Department also had a hand in reducing the Jews to financial ruin. Its officers routinely interpreted the laws in a manner which served to economically break Jewish merchants. When a Jew was unable to meet the excessive taxes, a tax collector would come to his home or place of business and confiscate his merchandise and household furnishings.
A Jew by the Name of Yisrael Weiner
In 1935, in the tiny village of Kreszowice, near Krakow, there lived a Jew by the name of Yisrael Weiner. It happened that he fell behind with his tax payments, and his home was visited by the tax collector, accompanied by a policeman. They had come to confiscate his belongings in lieu of the unpaid taxes.
Among Yisrael’s possessions was a greatly valued sewing machine. When not in use, it was draped with a linen cover adorned by an embroidered white eagle, the Polish national emblem. The tax collector ordered Yisrael to lift this cover so that he and his companion could inspect what was beneath it. When they were through, he lowered the cover back onto the smooth surface but, in his nervousness, did not take care to center it properly and one side hung down lower than the other.
