I’ve been reading the graphic novel Marzi, about a girl growing up in communist Poland in the 1980’s. In one story, a boy in the community has a medical condition that he needs to travel to Germany to get help for, but can’t afford it. So the German authorities say if the community sends them barcodes starting with the number 4, they’ll help them. According to the narrator, they had no idea why Germany wanted barcodes, but did it anyways. I also have no idea why they would want barcodes. Google has no idea why they would want barcodes. Does anyone here have an idea?
4 is - among other things - the code for products from Germany. My guess is therefore that it was short for saying, "show us that you support German production, and we will help".
Whether this was ever really a thing, I do not know. Have you tried contacting Marzena Sowa? She must have some extra info.
This is most likely (I need to make and assumption, as I haven't spoken with the author of the novel) a reference to an urban legend popular in the 1980's and early 1990's in several European countries (most notably France, then Germany, the Poland, I'm not sure if it gained any recognition anywhere else) that if people send specific amount of barcodes (usually low thousands) starting with a specific number, a wheelchair or other form of help to ill person will be funded, usually without specifying to whom should it be sent and who will be the sponsor. Jean-Noël Kapferer in his book 'Rumeurs. Le plus vieux média du monde' (eng. 'Rumors. The world's oldest medium'; Idon't know whether English translation exists) says that this legend originated with actual charity lottery held in one of the Corsican municipalities in 1982, where the barcodes starting with number '3' were collected (3 is the number indicating French products). This led to the rumor that the action is still ongoing on a country-wide level. In mid-1980s this rumor appeared in Germany (with number 3 replaced with 4, to reflect local products) and few years later also to Poland (this coincides with increased economic exchange and number of Poles traveling for temporary work to Germany). Given that no specifics were ever given, this is now considered to be one of the urban legends of the era that are resurfacing even now, usually in the wake of actual collection (of clothes, recyclable materials etc.) held for charity purposes.