However, I said this morning that it was very difficult for the population to obtain the necessary food supplies but that it was not impossible, so that I did not notice famine at all in the Government General.
And please may I ask you to consider that 80 percent of the population of the Government General were country people, so that there could be no famine on a large scale unless the countryside had been completely despoiled, and that was not the case.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: You stated that as a result of the food quotas established in the Government General a revolt might arise, and you said that the population was driven to despair by hunger. Is that not evidence that a famine was raging in the country?
BÜHLER: By “revolt” I meant “unrest,” not an armed uprising. It is quite clear that morale and the will to work did suffer by reason of the insufficient rations. I stated this morning how it was that adequate provisioning of the population could not be carried out. On the other hand, however, there was such a widespread free market and black market that even the worker, if he had sufficient time, could obtain food; and if he did not have time, he took it. That was what I meant by the workers taking things in their own hands.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Please, answer this question. Were only such educational possibilities left to the Poles as would—according to the plan of Frank and Goebbels—merely emphasize the hopeless destiny of their nation?
BÜHLER: Efforts to keep down the level of education of the Polish population were noticeable. These tendencies originated from Himmler in Berlin.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: I would like you to answer: What was done with the Polish universities?
BÜHLER: They were closed and they were not reopened. However, technical courses were arranged in Warsaw and in Lvov in which these people received university education; but, to be sure, these courses had to be closed by demand of the Reich.
MR. COUNSELLOR SMIRNOV: Perhaps you will recollect under whose signature the decree was issued to close the universities. Perhaps you will recognize this signature? It is an official report.
BÜHLER: The decree regarding the appointment of university trustees was signed by the Governor General in November 1940.