Collaboration in German-occupied Poland#Collaboration by Jews

{{Main|History of Poland (1939–1945)|Invasion of Poland}}

Following the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Hitler sought to establish Poland as a client state, proposing a multilateral territorial exchange and an extension of the German–Polish non-aggression pact. The Polish government, fearing subjugation to Nazi Germany, instead chose to form an alliance with Britain (and later with France). In response, Germany withdrew from the non-aggression pact and shortly before invading Poland, signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with the Soviet Union, safeguarding Germany against Soviet retaliation if it invaded Poland, and prospectively dividing Poland between the two totalitarian powers.

On 1 September 1939 Germany invaded Poland. The German army overran Polish defenses while inflicting heavy civilian losses, and by 13 September had conquered most of western Poland. On 17 September the Soviet Union invaded the country from the east, conquering most of eastern Poland, along with the Baltic states and parts of Finland in 1940. Some 140,000 Polish soldiers and airmen escaped to Romania and Hungary, and later many soon joining the Polish Armed Forces in France. Poland's government crossed the border into Romania, and later formed a government-in-exile in France and then in London, following the French capitulation. Poland as a polity never surrendered to the Germans.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ElJMFgxLSlgC&pg=PA15|title=Great Britain and the Holocaust: Poland's Role in Revealing the News|author=Adam Galamaga|date=21 May 2011|publisher=GRIN Verlag|isbn=978-3-640-92005-1|page=15|access-date=30 May 2012}}

File:Occupation of Poland 1939.png according to the German–Soviet Pact; division of Polish territories in the years 1939–1941]]

Nazi authorities annexed the westernmost parts of Poland and the former Free City of Danzig, incorporating it directly into Nazi Germany, and placed the remaining German-occupied territory under the administration of the newly formed General Government. The Soviet Union annexed the rest of Poland, incorporating its territories into the Belarusian and Ukrainian Soviet republics.

{{cite book

|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BqoaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA17

|title=Germans to Poles: Communism, Nationalism and Ethnic Cleansing After the Second World War

|author=Hugo Service

|date=11 July 2013

|publisher=Cambridge University Press

|isbn=978-1-107-67148-5|page=17

}} Germany's primary aim in Eastern Europe was to expand Germany's Lebensraum, in the name of which elimination or deportation of all non-Germanic ethnicities, including Poles in the areas controlled by the General Government was to make them "free" of Poles within 15–20 years.{{cite book |last=Berghahn

|first=Volker R. |year=1999 |chapter=Germans and Poles 1871–1945

|editor1=Bullivant, K. |editor2=Giles, G. J. |editor3=Pape, W. |title=Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences |publisher=Rodopi |isbn=978-9042006881

|pages=32

|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j6VCNno2DVMC&pg=PA15 }} This resulted in harsh policies which targeted the Polish population, in addition to Nazi Germany's explicit goal of exterminating Polish Jews, which was carried out in the occupied Polish territories.

Estimates of the number of individual Polish collaborators vary according to the definition of "collaboration". According to Klaus-Peter Friedrich estimates range from as few as 7,000 to as many as several hundred thousand (including Polish officials employed by the German authorities; Blue Police officers, who were required to serve; compulsory "labor service" workers; members of Poland's German minority; and even Poland's peasantry, which on the one hand was subject to food requisitions by the Germans, and on the other collaborated and benefited financially from the wartime economy and the removal of Jews from the Polish economy for much of the war.{{Citation|last = Berendt|first = Grzegorz|contribution = The Price of life : the economic determinants of Jews' existence on the "Aryan" side| editor-last = Rejak| editor-first = Sebastian| editor2-last = Frister| editor2-first = Elzbieta| title = Inferno of choices : Poles and the Holocaust.| pages = 115–165| publisher = RYTM| place = Warsaw | year = 2011}} Post-war communist Polish propaganda painted the entire non-communist Polish resistance, in particular the Home Army, as "Nazi collaborators".{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w4dsCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA4|title=The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945|author=Joshua D. Zimmerman|date=5 June 2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-01426-8|page=4}}

Czesław Madajczyk estimates that 5% of the population in the General Government actively collaborated, which he contrasts with the 25% who actively resisted the occupation.Czesław Madajczyk, Kann man in Polen 1939-1945 von Kollaborationsprechen, okupation und Kollaboration 1938-1945. Beitrage zu Konzepten und Praxis der Kollaboration in der deutschen Okkupationspolitik, Berlin, Heidelberg, W. Rohr, 1994, p. 140. Historian John Connelly writes that "only a relatively small percentage of the Polish population engaged in activities that may be described as collaboration, when seen against the backdrop of European and world history." However, he criticizes the same population for its indifference to the Jewish plight, a phenomenon he terms "structural collaboration" (see more below).

Unlike the situation in most German-occupied European countries where the Germans successfully installed collaborationist governments, in occupied Poland there was no puppet government.{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=hC0-dk7vpM8C |title=Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947 |last=Piotrowski |first=Tadeusz |date=1998 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=9780786403714 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Rubinstein |first=William D. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nHIABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA183 |title=Genocide |date=2014-07-10 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-317-86996-2 |pages=183 |language=en |quote=Unlike many other parts of Nazi-occupied Europe, Poland was not allowed to form even a puppet government}} The Germans had initially considered the creation of a collaborationist Polish cabinet to administer, as a protectorate, the occupied Polish territories that had not been annexed outright into the Third Reich.{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Yn4uDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT367 |title=Jan Karski. Jedno życie. Tom II. Inferno |last=Piasecki |first=Waldemar |date=2017-07-31 |publisher=Insignis |isbn=9788365743381 |language=pl}}{{Cite journal|url= https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/academic/were-these-ordinary-poles.html |title=Were These Ordinary Poles?|author-link1=Daniel Blatman|last=Blatman |first=Daniel |year=2002 |journal=Yad Vashem Studies |volume=XXX |location=Jerusalem |pages=51–66}} At the beginning of the war German officials contacted several Polish leaders with proposals for collaboration, but they all refused.{{Cite book|title=A world at arms: a global history of World War II |last=Weinberg |first=Gerhard L. |date=1999 |publisher=Cambridge Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-521-55879-2|edition=1. paperback ed., reprinted |location=Cambridge}}{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=uWU6u594dekC&pg=PA84 |title=Voices from the Holocaust |last=Cargas |first=Harry James |date=1994-06-28 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0813108254 |language=en |page=84}} Among those who rejected the German offers were Wincenty Witos, peasant party leader and former Prime Minister;{{Cite web|url= https://ipn.gov.pl/pl/publikacje/ksiazki/12805,Wincenty-Witos-18741945.html |title=Wincenty Witos 1874–1945 |publisher=Instytut Pamięci Narodowej |language=pl |access-date=2019-07-30}}{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=RnKlDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA2852 |title=Biographical Dictionary of Central and Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century |last1=Roszkowski |first1=Wojciech |last2=Kofman |first2=Jan |date=2016-07-08 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317475934 |language=en}} Prince Janusz Radziwiłł; and Stanisław Estreicher, prominent scholar from the Jagiellonian University.{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=ifADAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA154 |title=Dictatorship and Political Police: The Technique of Control by Fear |last=Bramstedt |first=E. K. |date=2013-09-27 |orig-year=1945 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781136230592 |language=en |page=154}}{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Vis5AAAAMAAJ&q=Stanisław+Estreicher+puppet+governments |title=School & Society |year=1940 |publisher=Science Press |language=en |page=113}}{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=WU4rAAAAMAAJ&q=Estreicher+declined |title=The Polish Review |year=1943 |publisher=Polish information center |language=en |page=338}}{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UUPTAAAAMAAJ&q=Stanislaw+Estreicher+a+prominent+Conservative+leader |title=News Flashes from Czechoslovakia Under Nazi Domination |date=1940 |publisher=The Council |language=en}}

In 1940, during the German invasion of France, the French government suggested that Polish politicians in France negotiate an accommodation with Germany; and in Paris the prominent journalist Stanislaw Mackiewicz tried to get Polish President Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz to negotiate with the Germans, as the French defenses were collapsing and German victory seemed inevitable. Three days later the Polish Government and Polish National Council rejected discussing capitulation and declared they would fight on until full victory over Nazi Germany. A group of eight low-ranking Polish politicians and officers broke with the Polish Government and in Lisbon, Portugal, addressed a memorandum to Germany, asking for discussions about restoring a Polish state under German occupation, which was rejected by the Germans. According to Czeslaw Madajczyk, in view of the low profile of the Poles involved and of Berlin's rejection of the memorandum, no political collaboration can be said to have taken place.Czeslaw Madajczyk "Nie chciana kolaboracja. Polscy politycy i nazistowskie Niemcy w Lipcu 1940", Bernard Wiaderny, Paryz 2002, Dzieje Najnowsze 35/2 226-229 2003

The Nazi racial policies and Germany's plans for the conquered Polish territories, on one hand, and Polish anti-German attitudes on the other, combined to prevent any Polish-German political collaboration. The Nazis envisioned the eventual disappearance of the Polish nation, which was to be replaced by German settlers."Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, Hitler spoke of the planned mass murder of Poles and asked, 'Who, after all, is today speaking about the destruction of the Armenians?'... Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine would be populated by [German] pioneer farmer-soldier families." Alex Ross, "The Hitler Vortex: How American racism influenced Nazi thought", The New Yorker, 30 April 2018, pp. 71–72. In April 1940 Hitler banned any negotiations concerning any degree of autonomy for the Poles, and no further consideration was given to the idea.

Shortly after the German occupation began, pro-German right-wing politician Andrzej Świetlicki formed an organization - the National Revolutionary Camp - and approached the Germans with various offers of collaboration, which they ignored. Świetlicki was arrested and executed in 1940.{{Cite journal|url= https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e620ec58-c600-49a5-8c36-2956e4e80e93 |last=Kunicki |first=Mikołaj |year=2001 |title=Unwanted Collaborators: Leon Kozłowski, Władysław Studnicki, and the Problem of Collaboration among Polish Conservative Politicians in World War II |journal=European Review of History: Revue Européenne d'Histoire |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=203–220 |doi=10.1080/13507480120074260 |s2cid=144137847 |issn=1469-8293|url-access=subscription }} Władysław Studnicki, another nationalist maverick politician and anti-communist publicist,{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=RnPz1sLVYm4C&pg=PA55 |title=Between the Brown and the Red: Nationalism, Catholicism, and Communism in Twentieth-Century Poland—The Politics of Bolesław Piasecki|last=Kunicki|first=Mikołaj Stanisław|date=2012-07-04|publisher=Ohio University Press|isbn=9780821444207|language=en}} and Leon Kozłowski, a former Prime Minister, each favored Polish-German cooperation against the Soviet Union, but were both also rejected by the Germans.

File:Odezwa do urzędników Policji Polskiej 1939.jpg poster requiring former Polish Police officers (Blue Police) to report for duty under the German Ordnungspolizei or face "severe" punishment]]

The main security forces in German-occupied Poland were some 550,000 soldiers and 80,000 SS and police officials sent from Germany.Czesław Madajczyk, Polityka III Rzeszy w okupowanej Polsce, Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1970, vol. 1, p. 242.

{{Main|Blue Police}}

In October 1939 the German authorities ordered mobilization of the prewar Polish police to serve under the German Ordnungspolizei, thus creating the auxiliary "Blue Police" that supplemented the principal German forces. The Polish policemen were to report for duty by 10 November 1939{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=QYKuDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA170 |title=The Waffen-SS: A European History|last1=Böhler|first1=Jochen|last2=Gerwarth|first2=Robert|date=2016-12-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780192507822|language=en}} or face death.{{cite book|first=Adam|last=Hempel|title=Policja granatowa w okupacyjnym systemie administracyjnym Generalnego Gubernatorstwa: 1939–1945|year=1987|publisher= Instytut Wydawniczy Związków Zawodowych|location=Warsaw|page=83|language=pl}} At its peak in May 1944, the Blue Police numbered some 17,000 men.{{Cite web|url=http://policjapanstwowa.pl/policja-polska-w-gg/|title=Policja Polska w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie 1939-1945 – Policja Panstwowa|website=policjapanstwowa.pl|language=pl-PL|access-date=2018-03-29|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180329184358/http://policjapanstwowa.pl/policja-polska-w-gg/|archive-date=2018-03-29|url-status=dead}} Their primary task was to act as a regular police force dealing with criminal activities, but the Germans also used them in combating smuggling and resistance, rounding up random civilians (łapanka) for forced labor or for execution in reprisal for Polish resistance activities (e.g., the Polish underground's execution of Polish traitors or egregiously brutal Germans), patrolling for Jewish ghetto escapees, and in support of military operations against the Polish resistance.{{cite news|url=https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium.MAGAZINE-orgy-of-murder-the-poles-who-hunted-jews-and-turned-them-in-1.5430977|title='Orgy of Murder': The Poles Who 'Hunted' Jews and Turned Them Over to the Nazis|newspaper=Haaretz}}

The Germans also created a Polnische Kriminalpolizei.{{citation needed|date=March 2019}}. The Polish criminal police team was trained at the Security Police School and the Security Service of the Reichsführer SS (SD) in Rabka-Zdrój. It's estimated that there were between 1,790 and 2,800 ethnic Poles in the Polish Kripo units.{{Cite book|title=Poland's holocaust : ethnic strife, collaboration with occupying forces and genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947|author=Piotrowski, Tadeusz|date=1998|publisher=McFarland|others=Mazal Holocaust Collection.|isbn=0786403713|location=Jefferson, N.C.|oclc=37195289|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/polandsholocaust00piot}} The organization of the Polish Criminal Police was analogous to the organization of the German “Kriminalpolizei" and consisted of various police stations. Station 1 dealt with robberies, assaults, murders and sabotage; station 2 - with small thefts; station 3 - with burglary and house thieves; station 4 - moral crimes; station 5 - with internal service, search of Jews in hiding and other wanted persons; station 6 - with registration of wanted persons, station 7 - with forensic technique, and photographic laboratory.{{Cite journal|last=Lityński|first=Adam|date=2013-12-15|title=Marek Mączyński, Organizacyjno-prawne aspekty funkcjonowania administracji bezpieczeństwa i porządku publicznego dla zajętych obszarów polskich w latach 1939-1945, ze szczgólnym uwzględnieniem Krakowa jako stolicy Generalnego Gubernatorstwa, 2012|journal=Czasopismo Prawno-Historyczne|volume=65|issue=2|pages=471–479|doi=10.14746/cph.2013.65.2.29|issn=0070-2471|doi-access=free}}

The German General Government tried to form additional Polish auxiliary police units—Schutzmannschaft Battalion 202 in 1942, and Schutzmannschaft Battalion 107 in 1943. Very few men volunteered, and the Germans decided on forced conscription to fill their ranks. Most of the conscripts subsequently deserted, and the two units were disbanded.{{cite web|url=http://www.myslpolska.icenter.pl/index.php?menu=kresy&nr=2005071718269 |title=Zbrodnia w Malinie – prawda i mity (1) |publisher=Myśl Polska: Kresy |work=Nr 29-30 |date=17–24 May 2005 |access-date=2013-06-23 |author=Andrzej Solak |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061005064715/http://www.myslpolska.icenter.pl/index.php?menu=kresy&nr=2005071718269 |archive-date=October 5, 2006 }} Schutzmannschaft Battalion 107 mutinied against its German officers, disarmed them, and joined the Home Army resistance.Józef Turowski, Pożoga: Walki 27 Wołyńskiej Dywizji AK, PWN, {{ISBN|83-01-08465-0}}, pp. 154-155.

Some Poles also passed on the side of the Soviet partisans - like Mikołaj Kunicki, Kompanieführer in Schutzmannschaft 104. Poles also served in Byelorussian Auxiliary PoliceCezary Chlebowski, Reportaż z tamtych dni Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza, Warszawa 1988, ss. 248-249 or in Ypatingasis būrys{{Cite book|title=Zbrodnia w Ponarach 1941-1944|last=Tomkiewicz, Monika.|date=2008|publisher=Instytut Pamięci Narodowej--Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu|isbn=9788360464915|location=Warszawa|oclc=318200999}} - due to the fact that part of Lithuania and Belarus was part of the Second Polish Republic.

In 1944, in the General Government, Germany attempted to recruit 12,000 Polish volunteers to "join the fight against Bolshevism". The campaign failed; only 699 men were recruited, 209 of whom either deserted or were disqualified for health reasons.{{cite journal|author=Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk|title=Pomiędzy współpracą a zdradą. Problem kolaboracji w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie – próba syntezy|url=http://cejsh.icm.edu.pl/cejsh/element/bwmeta1.element.desklight-85b5ca50-5e60-47e3-83a5-3a0c9d6c452f/c/103-132_Mlynarczyk.pd|journal=Pamięć I Sprawiedliwość: Biuletyn Głównej Komisji Badania Zbrodni Przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej|volume=1|issue=14|date=2009|page=113}}

{{main|Military enrolment in German-occupied Poland}}

File:Normandy POW.jpg) who had been forcibly conscripted into the German Army, speaks with Polish 1st Armoured Division soldiers in Normandy.]]

Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, many former citizens of the Second Polish Republic from across the Polish territories annexed by Nazi Germany were forcibly conscripted into the Wehrmacht in Upper Silesia and in Pomerania. They were declared citizens of the Third Reich by law and therefore subject to drumhead court-martial in case of draft evasion. Professor Ryszard Kaczmarek of the University of Silesia in Katowice, author of a monograph, Polacy w Wehrmachcie (Poles in the Wehrmacht), noted that the scale of this phenomenon was much larger than previously assumed, because 90% of the inhabitants of these two westernmost regions of prewar Poland were ordered to register on the German People's List (Volksliste), regardless of their wishes. The exact number of these conscripts is not known; no data exist beyond 1943.{{r|Kaczmarek 2010}}

In June 1946, the British Secretary of State for War reported to Parliament that, of the pre-war Polish citizens who had involuntarily signed the Volksliste and subsequently served in the German Wehrmacht, 68,693 men were captured or surrendered to the Allies in northwest Europe. The overwhelming majority, 53,630 subsequently enlisted in the Polish Army in the West and fought against Germany to the end of World War II.{{cite book|title=German Army Service|date=4 June 1946|work=Parliamentary Debates (Hansard)|url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1946/jun/04/german-army-service#S5CV0423P0_19460604_CWA_168|edition=Volume 423|access-date=28 July 2011|page=cc307–8W}}

{{main|Baudienst}}

In May 1940, the Germans instituted a Baudienst ("construction service") in several districts of the General Government, as a form of compulsory national service that combined hard labor with Nazi indoctrination. Service was rewarded with pocket money, and in some places it was a prerequisite for occupational training. Starting in April 1942, evasion of Baudienst service was punishable by death. By 1944, Baudienst strength had grown to some 45,000 servicemen.Antoni Mączak, Encyklopedia historii gospodarczej Polski do 1945 roku: O-Ż (Encyclopedia of Poland's Economic History: O–Ż), Warsaw, Wiedza Powszechna, 1981. {{page needed|date=August 2018}}

Baudienst servicemen were sometimes deployed in support of aktions (roundup of Jews for deportation or extermination), for example to blockade Jewish quarters or to search Jewish homes for hideaways and valuables. After such operations the servicemen were rewarded with vodka and cigarettes. Disobedience while in "service" was punished with commitment to punitive camps.{{cite web|title=BAUDIENST Służba Budowlana w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie 1940-1945|language=pl|url=http://www.fpnp.pl/info/pdf/baudienst.pdf|publisher=Fundacjia „Polsko-Niemieckie Pojednanie”, Muzeum Historii Polskiego Ruchu Ludowego, Zakład Historii Ruchu Ludowego|access-date=2018-07-16|archive-date=2015-09-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924015045/http://www.fpnp.pl/info/pdf/baudienst.pdf|url-status=dead}}

There were three Baudienst branches:

• Polnischer Baudienst (Polish Labor Service)
• Ukrainischer Heimatdienst (Ukrainian National Service)
• Goralischer Heimatdienst (Goral National Service)

In occupied Poland there was no Polish film industry.{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=YVJFXO4rR50C&pg=PA11 |title=Polish Film and the Holocaust: Politics and Memory |last=Haltof |first=Marek |author-link=Marek Haltof|publisher=Berghahn Books |year=2012 |isbn=9780857453570 |page=11 |language=en |quote=Poland had no feature film production during the occupation.}} However, a few former Polish citizens collaborated with the Germans in making films such as the 1941 anti-Polish propaganda film Heimkehr (Homecoming). In that film, casting for minor parts played by Polish actors was done by Volksdeutscher actor and Gestapo agent Igo Sym, who during the filming, on 7 March 1941, was shot in his Warsaw apartment by the Polish Union of Armed Struggle resistance movement; after the war, the Polish performers were sentenced for collaboration in an anti-Polish propaganda undertaking, with punishments ranging from official reprimand to imprisonment. Some Polish actors were coerced by the Germans into performing, as in the case of Bogusław Samborski, who played in Heimkehr probably in order to save his Jewish wife.{{Cite web|url= http://www.polska1918-89.pl/pdf/artysci-w-czasie-okupacji,5858.pdf |title=ARTYŚCI W CZASIE OKUPACJI |last=NISIOBĘCKA |first=ANETA |publisher=Institute of National Remembrance |page=66 |language=pl |trans-title=Artists under the [German] Occupation |quote=Some actors were coerced by the Germans into collaborating. The Germans wanted to create the appearance that "order" prevailed in Poland, and that people who did not rebel were provided with entertainment at a level suitable for them. Bogusław Samborski played in the anti-Polish film Heimkehr probably in order to save his Jewish wife. (pl.: Niektórych aktorów Niemcy szantażem zmuszali do współpracy. Zależało im na stworzeniu pozorów, że w Polsce panuje „ład i porządek”, a ludzie, którzy się nie buntują, mają zapewnioną rozrywkę na odpowiednim dla nich poziomie. Bogusław Samborski zagrał w antypolskim filmie Heimkehr, prawdopodobnie po to, by ratować żonę-Żydówkę.}}

During the occupation, feature-film showings were preceded by propaganda newsreels of Die Deutsche Wochenschau (The German Weekly Review). Some feature films likewise contained Nazi propaganda. The Polish underground discouraged Poles from attending movies, advising them, in the words of the rhymed couplet, "Tylko świnie siedzą w kinie" ("Only swine go to the movies").{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=aHufS1XmIk4C&pg=PA44 |title=Polish National Cinema |last=Haltof |first=Marek |year=2002 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=9781571812759 |page=44 |language=en |quote=Tylko świnie siedzą w kinie}}

Following the Polish underground's execution of Igo Sym, in reprisal the Germans took hostages and, on 11 March 1941, executed 21 at their Palmiry killing grounds. They also arrested several actors and theater directors and sent them to Auschwitz, including such notable figures as Stefan Jaracz and Leon Schiller.{{cite news|url= http://niniwa22.cba.pl/igo_sym_byc_tym_co%20slynie.htm |title=Być tym, co słynie. Igo Sym |author=Bogusław Kunach |date=2003-12-01 |publisher=Gazeta Wyborcza |access-date=2019-12-08 |language=pl |url-status=live |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20120306045312/http://niniwa2.cba.pl/igo_sym_byc_tym_co%20slynie.htm |archive-date=March 6, 2012 }}

The largest theater for Polish audiences was Warsaw's Komedia (Comedy). There were also a dozen small theaters. Polish actors were forbidden by the underground to perform in these theaters, but some did and were punished after the war. Many other actors supported themselves by working as waiters. Adolf Dymsza performed in legal cabarets and wasn't allowed to perform at Warsaw during a short period after the war.{{Cite web|url= https://www.rp.pl/Film/308209973-Adolf-Dymsza-Zlamana-kariera-slynnego-polskiego-komika.html |title=Adolf Dymsza: Złamana kariera słynnego polskiego komika |first=Mateusz |last=Guzik |date=2015-08-20 |access-date=2019-07-30}} A theater producer Zygmunt Ipohorski-Lenkiewicz was shot as a Gestapo agent.

The legal press in German-occupied Poland was a German propaganda tool, which Poles called {{ill|gadzinówka|pl|gadzinówka}} ("reptile press"). Many respected journalists refused to work for the Germans; and those writing for the German-controlled press were considered collaborators.{{citation needed|date=December 2019}}

Jan Emil Skiwski, a writer and journalist of extreme National Democrat and fascist orientation, collaborated with Germany, publishing pro-Nazi Polish newspapers in German-occupied Poland. Toward war's end, he escaped advancing Soviet armies, fled Europe, and spent the rest of his life under an assumed name in Venezuela.

{{see also|Polish resistance movement in World War II}}

File:Plakat Kierownictwa Walki Podziemnej informujący o wykonanych wyrokach śmierci wrzesień 1943.jpg poster announcing the execution of several Polish collaborators and blackmailers (szmalcowniks), September 1943]]

The main armed resistance organization in Poland was the Home Army (Armia Krajowa, or AK), numbering some 400,000 members, including Jewish fighters.{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Jzxt9FFBDPwC |title=Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw |last=Davies |first=Norman |date=2008-09-04 |publisher=Pan Macmillan |isbn=9780330475747 |pages=287 |language=en |quote=They are particularly incensed by the false accusation that the Home Army did not accept Jews, and by even wilder talk about it being an anti-Semitic organization. The fact is, Jews with the various religious or political connections served with distinction both in the Home Army and in the People's Army.}}Edward Kossoy Zydzi w Powstaniu WarszawskimPowstanie warszawskie w walce i dyplomacji - page 23 Janusz Kazimierz Zawodny, Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert - 2005 Był również czterdziestoosobowy pluton żydowski, dowodzony przez Samuela Kenigsweina, który walczył w batalionie AK „Wigry" The Home Army command rejected any talks with the German authorities,{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=88}} but some Home Army units in eastern Poland did maintain contacts with the Germans in order to gain intelligence on German morale and preparedness and perhaps acquire needed weapons.Review by John Radzilowski of Yaffa Eliach's There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok, in Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 1, no. 2 (June 1999), City University of New York. The Germans made several attempts at arming regional Home Army units in order to encourage them to act against Soviet partisans operating in the Nowogródek and Vilnius areas. Local Home Army units accepted arms but used them for their own purposes, disregarding the Germans' intents and even turning the weapons against the Germans.{{cite book|last=Bubnys|first=Arūnas|author-link=Arūnas Bubnys|title=Vokiečių okupuota Lietuva (1941-1944)|publisher=Lietuvos gyventojų genocido ir rezistencijos tyrimo centras|year=1998| location=Vilnius|isbn=978-9986-757-12-2}}{{in lang|lt}} Rimantas Zizas. Armijos Krajovos veikla Lietuvoje 1942–1944 metais (Activities of Armia Krajowa in Lithuania in 1942–1944). Armija Krajova Lietuvoje, pp. 14–39. A. Bubnys, K. Garšva, E. Gečiauskas, J. Lebionka, J. Saudargienė, R. Zizas (editors). Vilnius – Kaunas, 1995. Tadeusz Piotrowski concludes that "[these deals] were purely tactical, short-term arrangements"{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=88}} and quotes Joseph Rothschild that "the Polish Home Army was by and large untainted by collaboration."{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=90}}

The Polish right-wing National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, or NSZ) – a nationalist, anti-communist organization,{{r|Garlinsky 1985|p=137}}{{r|Zimmerman 2015|p=371}}{{Cite book |title=The history of Poland |last=Biskupski |first=Mieczysław |date=2000 |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0313305719 |location=Westport, Conn. |pages=[https://archive.org/details/historyofpoland00bisk/page/110 110] |oclc=42021562 |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofpoland00bisk/page/110 }} widely perceived as anti-Semitic{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1080/14623529908413950| issn = 1469-9494| volume = 1| issue = 2| pages = 169–212| last = Cymet| first = David| title = Polish state antisemitism as a major factor leading to the Holocaust| journal = Journal of Genocide Research| date = June 1999}}{{r|Cooper 2000|p=147}}{{r|Zimmerman 2015|p=371}}{{Cite book| edition = 1. issued in paperback| publisher = Littman Library of Jewish Civilization| isbn = 978-1-904113-19-5| editor = Władysław Bartoszewski | title = Poles and Jews: perceptions and misperceptions| location = Oxford| series = Polin| date = 2004| page = 356}}{{Cite book |title=The generation : the rise and fall of the Jewish communists of Poland |last=Schatz |first=Jaff |date=1991 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0520071360 |location=Berkeley |pages=204 |oclc=22984393}} – did not have a uniform policy regarding Jews.{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=96-97}} Its attitude to them drew on anti-semitism and anti-communism, perceiving Jewish partisans and refugees as "pro-Soviet elements" and members of an ethnicity foreign to the Polish nation. Except in rare cases,{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=96}} the NSZ did not admit Jews,{{r|Cooper 2000|p=149}} and on several occasions killed or delivered Jewish partisans to the German authorities{{r|Cooper 2000|p=149}} and murdered Jewish refugees.{{r|Cymet 1999}}{{r|Cooper 2000|p=141}}{{Cite book |title=Philo-Semitic and anti-Jewish attitudes in post-Holocaust Poland |last=Mushkat |first=Marion |date=1992 |publisher=Edwin Mellen Press |isbn=978-0773491762 |location=Lewiston |pages=50 |oclc=26855644}} NSZ units also frequently skirmished with partisans of the Polish communist People's Army (Armia Ludowa).

At least two NSZ units operated with the acquiescence or cooperation of the Germans at different times.{{r|Cooper 2000|p=149}} In late 1944, in the face of advancing Soviet forces, the Holy Cross Mountains Brigade, numbering 800-1,500 fighters, decided to cooperate with the Germans.{{cite book|author=Instytut Pamięci Narodowej--Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu. Biuro Edukacji Publicznej|title=Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U4gjAQAAIAAJ|year=2007|publisher=Instytut|page=73}}{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=LPYnAQAAIAAJ&q=brygada+swietokrzyska |title=The Polish Studies Newsletter|last=Wozniak|first=Albion|date=2003|publisher=Albin Wozniak|language=en}}{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=QHk7HAAACAAJ |title=Brygada Świętokrzyska NSZ|last=Żebrowski|first=Leszek|date=1994|publisher=Gazeta Handlowa|language=pl}} It ceased hostilities against them, accepted their logistical help, and coordinated its retreat to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Once there, the unit resumed hostilities against the Germans and on 5 May 1945 liberated the Holýšov concentration camp.{{Cite book| publisher = Hippocrene Books| isbn = 978-0-88254-517-2| last = Korbonski| first = Stefan| title = The polish underground state: a guide to the underground 1939 - 1945| location = New York| date = 1981| page = [https://archive.org/details/polishundergroun0000korb/page/7 7]| url = https://archive.org/details/polishundergroun0000korb/page/7}} Another NSZ unit known to collaborate with the Germans was Hubert Jura's unit, also known as Tom's Organization, which operated in the Radom district.{{Cite book |title=The SS hunter battalions : the hidden history of the Nazi Resistance Movement 1944-45 |last=Biddiscombe |first=Perry |date=2013 |publisher=The History Press |isbn=9780752496450 |location=New York |pages=100 |oclc=852756721}}

The Communist underground (PPR, GL) denounced Home Army operatives to the Nazis, resulting in 200 arrests. The Germans found a Communist printing shop as a result of one such denunciation by Marian Spychalski.[http://archiwum.rp.pl/artykul/680226-Komunistyczny-donos-do-gestapo.html Komunistyczny donos do gestapo]{{cite web|url= http://www.polska1918-89.pl/pdf/donos-wywiadu-gwardii-ludowej-do-gestapo-na-rzekomych-komunistow-i-kry,3406.pdf |title=Donos wywiadu Gwardii Ludowej do gestapo na rzekomych komunistów i kryptokomunistów (wrzesień 1943 roku) |first=Władisław |last=Bułhak |language=pl}}

{{see also|The Holocaust in Poland|Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust}}

File:Pogrom w Jedwabnem Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich.JPG at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.]]

Historian Martin Winstone writes that only a minority of Poles took part either in persecuting or in helping Jews. He compares Poland with other occupied countries and asserts the largest part of society was indifferent. Regarding the purported low Polish resolve to save Jews, Winstone writes that this tendency may be partly explained by fear of execution by the Germans. He nevertheless notes that the Germans imposed death sentences for many other acts and quotes Michał Berg: "[Poles] were threatened with death not only for sheltering Jews, but for many other things... [but] they kept right on doing them. Why was it that only helping Jews scared them?" Winstone comments, "it may well be that the risk of hiding a Jew was greater, but that is in itself suggestive since the Germans were not the only danger"; he goes on to explain that Poles who had helped Jews were afraid of repercussions even after liberation.

Sociologist Jan Gross writes that a leading role in the 1941 Jedwabne pogrom was carried out by four Polish men, including Jerzy Laudański and Karol Bardoń, who had earlier collaborated with the Soviet NKVD and were now trying to recast themselves as zealous collaborators with the Germans.Gross (2001), Neighbors, p. 75.

Historian John Connelly wrote that the vast majority of ethnic Poles showed indifference to the fate of the Jews; and that "Polish historiography has hesitated to view [complicity in the Holocaust of Jews] as collaboration... [instead viewing it] as a form of society's 'demoralization'". Klaus-Peter Friedrich wrote that "most [Poles] adopted a policy of wait-and-see... In the eyes of the Jewish population, [this] almost inevitably had to appear as silent approval of the [German] occupier's actions." According to historian Gunnar S. Paulsson, in occupied Warsaw (a city of 1.3 million, including 350,000 Jews before the war), some 3,000 to 4,000 Poles acted as blackmailers and informants (szmalcowniks) who turned in Jews and fellow-Poles who provided assistance to Jews.{{Cite web|url=https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069|title=Warsaw|website=www.ushmm.org|language=en|access-date=2018-03-02}} Grzegorz Berendt estimates the number of Polish citizens who participated in anti-Jewish actions as being a "group of dozens of thousands of individuals".{{Cite web|url=https://www.dzieje.pl/aktualnosci/prof-berendt-w-wiedniu-zadaniem-pokazanie-roznicy-w-polskim-i-zydowskim-doswiadczeniu|title=Prof. Berendt w Wiedniu: Zadaniem pokazanie różnicy w polskim i żydowskim doświadczeniu lat 1939-45|website=dzieje.pl|language=pl|access-date=2019-02-09}}

In 2013, historian Jan Grabowski wrote in his book Hunt for the Jews that "one can assume that the number of victims of the Judenjagd could reach 200,000—and this in Poland alone."{{Cite book| publisher = Indiana University Press| isbn = 978-0-253-01074-2| last = Grabowski| first = Jan| title = Hunt for the Jews: betrayal and murder in German-occupied Poland| location = Bloomington, Indiana| date = 2013}} The book was praised by some scholars for its approach and analysis,[https://www.timesofisrael.com/hunt-for-the-jews-snags-yad-vashem-book-prize/ "Hunt for the Jews snags Yad Vashem book prize"], Times of Israel (JTA), 8 December 2014.[http://www.yadvashem.org/press-release/04-december-2014-16-18.html "Professor Jan Grabowski wins the 2014 Yad Vashem International Book Prize"], Yad Vashem, 4 December 2014. while a number of other historians criticized his methodology for lacking in actual field research,Samsonowska, Krystyna (July 2011). "Dąbrowa Tarnowska - nieco inaczej. (Dąbrowa Tarnowska - not quite like that)". Więź. 7: 75–85. and argued that his "200,000" estimate was too high.{{cite web|url=https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-poles-weren-t-tacit-collaborators-with-nazi-extermination-of-jews-1.5441677|author=Grzegorz Berendt|title="The Polish People Weren't Tacit Collaborators with Nazi Extermination of Jews" (opinion)|publisher=Haaretz|date=24 February 2017|author-link=Grzegorz Berendt}}Musial, Bogdan (2011). "Judenjagd – 'umiejętne działanie' czy zbrodnicza perfidia?"". Dzieje Najnowsze: kwartalnik poświęcony historii XX wieku (in Polish). Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

The Lviv pogrom was carried out by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), Ukrainian People's Militia and local Ukrainian mobs in the city of Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine), between June and July 1941, shortly after the German takeover of the city.Himka, John-Paul (2011). "The Lviv Pogrom of 1941: The Germans, Ukrainian Nationalists, and the Carnival Crowd". Canadian Slavonic Papers. 53 (2–4): 209–243. ISSN 0008-5006. Taylor & Francis. The pogrom was organized by the German SS Einsatzgruppe C and OUN leaders under a pretext that the local Jews were co-responsible for the earlier Soviet atrocities in the city.Ronald Headland (1992). Messages of Murder: A Study of the Reports of the Einsatzgruppen of the Security Police and the Security Service, 1941-1943. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. pp. 111–112. {{ISBN|0838634184}}. In total, around 6,000 Jews were killed by the Ukrainians, followed by an additional 3,000 executed in subsequent Einsatzgruppe killings. The pogrom culminated in the so-called "Petlura Days" massacre, when more than 2,000 Jews were killed.Longerich, Peter (2010). Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. p. 194. {{ISBN|978-0-19-280436-5}}.

Germans used the divide and rule method to create tensions within the Polish society, by targeting several non-Polish ethnic groups for preferential treatment or the opposite, in the case of the Jewish minority.

{{Main|Volksdeutsche|Hauptamt Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle|Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz|Sonderdienst}}

File:Wiec warszawskich volksdeutschów w sali Roma.jpg) in occupied Warsaw, 1940]]

File:Selbstschutz leaders in Bydgoszcz.jpg leaders in Bydgoszcz, 1939]]

During the invasion of Poland in September 1939, members of the German ethnic minority in Poland, which had numbered some 750,000 persons before the war,Maria Wardzyńska, Był rok 1939: Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce Intelligenzaktion (It Was 1939: Intelligenzaktion [Operation Intelligentsia] of the German Security Police in Poland), Warsaw, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (Institute of National Remembrance), 2009, {{ISBN|978-83-7629-063-8}}, p. 20. assisted Nazi Germany in its war effort. The number of Germans in prewar Poland who belonged to pro-Nazi German organizations is estimated at some 200,000, primarily members of Jungdeutsche Partei, Deutsche Vereinigung, Naziverein, and Deutsche Jugendschaft in Polen.Maria Wardzyńska, Był rok 1939 Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion, IPN Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2009 {{ISBN|978-83-7629-063-8}} p. 23. They committed sabotage, diverted regular forces, and committed numerous atrocities against the civilian population.Maria Wardzyńska, Był rok 1939 Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion, IPN Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2009 {{ISBN|978-83-7629-063-8}}.Christopher R. Browning, Jürgen Matthäus, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942: A Comprehensive History of the Holocaust, Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, {{ISBN|978-0-8032-1327-2}}, 2004, p. 33. Additionally, German-minority activists helped draw up a list of 80,000 Poles who were to be arrested after the invasion of Poland by German forces; most of those on the list lost their lives in the first few months of the war.Maria Wardzyńska, Był rok 1939 Operacja niemieckiej policji bezpieczeństwa w Polsce. Intelligenzaktion, IPN Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2009 {{ISBN|978-83-7629-063-8}} p. 49. Volksdeutsche were highly praised by German authorities for providing information on Poland and on Polish activists, which was considered invaluable to the successful military campaign against Poland.

Shortly after the German invasion of Poland, an armed ethnic-German militia, the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz, was formed, numbering some 100,000 members.Michael Geyer, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared, Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 155. It organized the Operation Tannenberg mass murder of Polish elites. At the beginning of 1940, the Selbstschutz was disbanded, and its members were transferred to various SS, Gestapo, and German-police units. The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle organized large-scale looting of property, and redistributed goods to Volksdeutsche. They were given apartments, workshops, farms, furniture, and clothing confiscated from Jewish Poles and ethnic Poles.August Frank, "Memorandum, September 26, 1942: Utilization of property on the occasion of settlement and evacuation of Jews", in NO-724, Pros. Ex. 472, United States of America v. Oswald Pohl, et al. (Case no. 4, the "Pohl Trial"), V, pp. 965–67. In Gdańsk Pomerania, by 22 November 1939, 30% of the German population (38,279 persons) had joined the Selbstschutz (almost all the German men in the region) and had executed some 30,000 Poles."22 listopada 1939 r. do Selbstschutzu w Okręgu Rzeszy Gdańsk-Prusy Zachodnie należało 38 279 osób. Stanowiło to ponad 30 proc. mniejszości niemieckiej na Pomorzu Gdańskim. Do Samoobrony wstąpili prawie wszyscy mężczyźni [...] Jesienią 1939 r. członkowie Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz dokonali mordów polskiej ludności cywilnej w conajmniej 359 miejscowościach. Szacuje się, że egzekucje pochłonęły życie 30 tys. osób w Okręgu Rzeszy Gdańsk-Prusy Zachodnie." Tomasz Ceran, Zapomniani kaci Hitlera: Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz w okupowanej Polsce 1939-1940: wybrane zagadnienia (Hitler's Forgotten Executioners: the Volksdeutscher Selbstschutz in Occupied Poland, 1939–1940: selections), pp. 302-3. Ziemie polskie pod okupacją 1939-1945. Centralny Projekt Badawczy IPN. Warsaw, 2016.

During the German occupation of Poland, Nazi authorities established a German People's List (Deutsche Volksliste", or "DVL), whereby former Polish citizens of German ethnicity were registered as Volksdeutsche. The German authorities encouraged registration of ethnic Germans, and in many cases made it mandatory. Those who joined were given benefits, including better food and better social status. However, Volksdeutsche were required to perform military service for the Third Reich, and hundreds of thousands joined the German military, either willingly or under compulsion.Historia: Encyklopedia Szkolna, Warsaw, Wydawnictwa Szkolne i Pedagogiczne, 1993, pp. 357–58.

According to {{ill|Ryszard Kaczmarek|pl|Ryszard Kaczmarek}}, in 1939 Poland's German minority numbered some 750,000 and constituted the principal citizen collaborators.{{cite journal|author=Ryszard Kaczmarek|title=Kolaboracja na terenach wcielonych do Rzeszy Niemieckiej|url=http://www.polska1918-89.pl/pdf/kolaboracja-na-terenach-wcielonych-do-rzeszy-niemieckiej,3391.pdf|journal=Pamięć I Sprawiedliwość|issue=7/1 (12)|page=166|date=2008|quote=Na wschodzie, na polskich terenach wcielonych, przed wybuchem wojny olbrzymią rolę odgrywała mniejszość niemiecka i spośród jej przedstawicieli rekrutowała się głównie grupa aktywnych kolaboracjonistów.}}{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=00pnVVpoddYC |title=The German Minority in Interwar Poland |last=Chu |first=Winson |date=2012-06-25 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781107008304 |language=en}}

{{main|Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany|Byelorussian collaboration with Nazi Germany}}

File:Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler wizytuje 14. Dywizje Grenadierów Waffen SS "Galizien" (2-1995).jpg inspecting Ukrainian volunteers of the SS-Galizien division, May 1943]]

Before the war, Poland had a substantial population of Ukrainian and Belarusian minorities living in her eastern, Kresy regions. After the Soviet invasion of eastern Poland on 17 September 1939, those territories were annexed by the USSR. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, German authorities recruited Ukrainians and Belarusians who had been citizens of Poland before September 1939 for service in the Waffen-SS and auxiliary-police units, serving as guards in the German-run extermination camps set up by the Nazis in occupied-Poland, and to assist with anti-partisan operations.{{cite news |author= |title=Ukrainians guards took part in extermination |url=https://www.jpost.com/International/Ukrainians-guards-took-part-in-extermination |work=The Jerusalem Post |agency=Associated Press |date=2010-01-10 |access-date=2019-06-21}} In District Galicia, the SS Galicia division and Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, made up of ethnic-Ukrainian volunteers, took part in widespread massacres and persecution of Poles and Jews.Czesław Partacz, Krzysztof Łada, Polska wobec ukraińskich dążeń niepodległościowych w czasie II wojny światowej, (Toruń: Centrum Edukacji Europejskiej, 2003)Timothy Snyder. (2004) The Reconstruction of Nations. New Haven: Yale University Press: pp. 165–166 Also, as early as the September Campaign, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiya Ukrayins'kykh Natsionalistiv, or OUN) had been “a faithful German auxiliary"John A. Armstrong, Collaborationism in World War II: The Integral Nationalist Variant in Eastern Europe, The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Sep., 1968), p. 409. carrying out acts of sabotage against Polish targets on behest of the Abwehr.Recenzje i polemiki: W. Szpicer, W. Moroz – Krajowyj Prowindyk Wołodymyr Tymczij – „Łopatynśkij”, Wydawnictwo Afisza, Lwów, 2004. W: Grzegorz Motyka: Pamięć i Sprawiedliwość. Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej nr 2/10/2006. Warszawa: IPN, 2006, s. 357-361. ISSN 1427-7476.

{{See|Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany}}

File:Bundesarchiv Bild 101I-270-0298-11, Polen, Ghetto Warschau, Drahtzaun.jpg guarding the gates of the Warsaw Ghetto, June 1942]]

File:Getto warszawskie Funkcjonariusze Urzędu do Walki z Lichwą i Spekulacją.jpg, a Jewish collaborationist organization in the Warsaw Ghetto, which reported directly to the German Gestapo, 1941]]

A minority of Jews chose to collaborate with the Germans, in return for limited freedom, safety and other compensation (food, money) for the collaborators and their relatives. Some were motivated purely by self-interest, such as individual survival, revenge, or greed, while others were coerced into collaboration.{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=67}}

The Judenräte (s. Judenrat, literally "Jewish council") were Jewish-run governing bodies set up by the Nazi authorities in Jewish ghettos across German-occupied Poland. The Judenräte functioned as a self-enforcing intermediary and were used by the Germans to control the Jewish population and to manage the day-to-day administration of the ghettos. The Germans also required Judenräte to confiscate property, organize forced labor, collect information on the Jewish population and facilitate deportations to extermination camps.{{cite book |last1=Hilberg |first1=Raul |title=Perpetrators, victims, bystanders : the Jewish catastrophe, 1933-1945 |date=1995 |publisher=Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd |location=London |isbn=9780436202964 |page=106}}{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Mf9NAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA207 |title=Extension of Life|last=Bauman|first=Robert J.|date=2012-04-19|publisher=Xlibris Corporation|isbn=9781469192451}}{{r|Arendt 1963|p=117–118}} In some cases, Judenrat members exploited their positions to engage in bribery and other abuses. For example, Chaim Rumkowski (head of the Judenrat in the Łódź Ghetto) eliminated his political opponents by submitting their names for deportation to concentration camps, hoarded food rations, and sexually abused Jewish girls.Rees, Laurence,Auschwitz: The Nazis and the "Final Solution", especially the testimony of Lucille Eichengreen, pp. 105-131. BBC Books. {{ISBN|978-0-563-52296-6}}.Rees, Laurence.[https://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/about/transcripts_2.html "Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi state"]. BBC/KCET, 2005. Retrieved: 01.10.2011. Tadeusz Piotrowski cited Jewish survivor Baruch Milch who wrote that "Judenrat became an instrument in the hand of the Gestapo for extermination of the Jews... I do not know of a single instance when the Judenrat would help some Jew in a disinterested manner." though Piotrowski cautions that "Milch's is a particular account of a particular place and time... the behavior of Judenrat members was not uniform."{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=73-74}} Political theorist Hannah Arendt stated that without the assistance of the Judenräte, the German authorities would have encountered considerable difficulties in drawing up detailed lists of the Jewish population, thus allowing for at least some Jews to avoid deportation.{{page needed|date=March 2023}}

The Jewish Ghetto Police (Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst) were volunteers recruited from among Jews living in the ghettos who could be relied on to follow German orders. They were issued batons, official armbands, caps, and badges, and were responsible for public order in the ghetto. They were also used by the Germans for securing the deportation of other Jews to concentration camps."Judischer Ordnungsdienst". Museum of Tolerance. Simon Wiesenthal Center. Retrieved 14 January 2008.Collins, Jeanna R. "Am I a Murderer?: Testament of a Jewish Ghetto Policeman (review)". Mandel Fellowship Book Reviews. Kellogg Community College. Retrieved 13 January 2008. The numbers of Jewish police varied greatly depending on the location, with about 2,500 at the Warsaw Ghetto, 1,200 at the Łódź Ghetto, and about 500 at the Lwów Ghetto.{{r|Hilberg 1961|p=310}} Historian and Warsaw Ghetto archivist Emanuel Ringelblum described the cruelty of the Jewish Ghetto Police as "at times greater than that of the Germans", concluding that they distinguished themselves by their shocking corruption and immorality.

In Warsaw, the collaborationist groups Żagiew and Group 13, led by Abraham Gancwajch and colloquially known as the "Jewish Gestapo", inflicted considerable damage on both Jewish and Polish underground resistance movements.{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=LIe1AAAAIAAJ |first=Henryk |last=Piecuch |title=Syndrom tajnych służb: czas prania mózgów i łamania kości |publisher= Agencja Wydawnicza CB |year=1999 |isbn=978-83-86245-66-6}} Over a thousand such Jewish Nazi collaborators, some armed with firearms,{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=74}} served under the German Gestapo as informers on Polish resistance efforts to hide Jews, and engaged in racketeering, blackmail, and extortion in the Warsaw Ghetto.Israel Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 1939–1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt, Indiana University Press, 1982, {{ISBN|0-253-20511-5}}, pp. 90–94.Itamar Levin, Walls Around: The Plunder of Warsaw Jewry during World War II and Its Aftermath, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004, {{ISBN|0-275-97649-1}}, pp. 94–98. A 70-strong group led by a Jewish collaborator called Hening was tasked with operating against the Polish resistance, and was quartered at the Gestapo's Warsaw headquarters on Szucha Street.{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=74}} Similar groups and individuals operated in towns and cities across German-occupied Poland — including Józef Diamand in Kraków{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=qCUjAAAAMAAJ&q=Józef+Diamand |title=W okupowanym Krakowie: 6.IX.1939 - 18.I.1945|last=Dąbrowa-Kostka|first=Stanisław|date=1972|publisher=Wydaw. Min. Obrony Nar.|language=pl}} and Szama Grajer in Lublin.{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=TJkwAQAAIAAJ&q=Szama+Grajer |title=Extermination of the Lublin ghetto|last=Radzik|first=Tadeusz|date=2007|publisher=Wydawn. Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej|isbn=9788322726471|language=pl}} It is estimated that at the end of 1941 and the start of 1942 there were some 15,000 "Jewish Gestapo" agents in the General Government.{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=74}}

The Germans used Jewish agent provocateurs to bait Jews hiding outside of the ghettos, turn them over to the Germans, and occasionally entrap Poles who were helping the Jews. One example of such actions is the “Hotel Polski Affair”. After the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto, agents from the Żagiew network lured Jews out of hiding and to the Hotel Polski, with the promise that they would be allowed to emigrate from Nazi-occupied Europe. Around 2,500 Jews came out of their hiding places and went to the hotel, where they were captured by the Germans.{{r|Piotrowski 1998|p=74}} In another incident in the village of Paulinów, the Germans used a Jewish agent to pose as an escapee looking for a hiding place with a Polish family, after receiving help the agent denounced the Polish family to the Germans, resulting in the deaths of 12 Poles and several Jews who were hiding with the family.Teresa Prekerowa, Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, "Who Helped Jews during the Holocaust in Poland", Acta Poloniae Historica, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Semper, vol. 76, p. 166. {{ISSN|0001-6829}} "The gravest provocation involving Jews took place in 1943, some 100 km east of Warsaw; a Jewish Gestapo agent posing as a fugitive was given, or promised, help by 14 inhabitants of the village of Paulinów." Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1997Joanna Kierylak, Treblinka Museum, "12 sprawiedliwych z Paulinowa", 2013, retrieved 2018-05-25. "Akcja niemiecka, zakrojona na szeroką skalę... Posłużono się tu prowokacją. Rozpoznania dokonali prowokatorzy. Byli nimi Żydzi, jeden z Warszawy, drugi ze Sterdyni – Szymel Helman. Prowokator z Warszawy dołączył do ukrywających się Żydów, podając się za Żyda francuskiego, zbiegłego z transportu przesiedleńców wiezionych do Treblinki." ("[In a] large-scale German operation... use was made of provocation. The scouting-out was done by agent-provocateurs. They were Jews, here one from Warsaw, the other from Sterdyń—Szymel Helman. The agent-provocateur from Warsaw joined some Jews who were in hiding, giving himself out to be a French Jew who had escaped from a transport of deportees who were being sent to Treblinka.") Smaller scale provocations were more common, with Jewish agents approaching Polish resistance members asking for fake documents, followed by Gestapo arresting said resistance members.{{cite journal|language=pl|title=Przeciw swoim: Wzorce kolaboracji żydowskiej w Krakowie i okolicy|journal=Zagłada Żydów - Studia I Materiały, Rocznik Naukowy Centrum Badań Nad Zagładą Żydów|number=2|year=2006|page=206|author=Witold W. Mędykowski}}

Some members of Jewish Social Self-Help (Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe), also known as the Jewish Social Assistance Society, collaborated with Nazi authorities in the deportation of Warsaw Jews to death camps. The group was formed as a humanitarian organization funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which also supplied it with legal cover,Alexandra Garbarini, Jewish Responses to Persecution: 1938–1940, p. 198. and was allowed to operate within the General Government. Concerned with its lack of effectiveness, and seeing it as a cover for Nazi atrocities, both Jewish and Polish underground movements actively resisted the organization.{{Cite web|title=Żydowski Urząd Samopomocy (ŻUS)|url= https://delet.jhi.pl/pl/psj?articleId=16863 |last=Szapiro|first=Paweł|website=Żydowski Instytut Historyczny|language=pl|access-date=2021-03-07}}

File:"Wacław Krzeptowski na Wawelu z wizytą u Hansa Franka, z okazji rocznicy urodzin Adolfa Hitlera 20.04.1940 r.".jpg, prominent Goralenvolk collaborator, visiting German governor Hans Frank during a celebration held in honor of Hitler's birthday]]

The Germans singled out as potential collaborators two ethnographic groups that had some separatist interests: the Kashubians in the north, and the Gorals in the south. They reached out to the Kashubians, but that plan proved a "complete failure".{{r|Wendt|pp=86-87}} The Germans had some limited success with the Gorals – establishing the Goralenvolk movement, which Katarzyna Szurmiak calls "the most extensive case of collaboration in Poland during the Second World War."{{r|Wendt|pp=86-87}} Overall, however, "when talking about numbers, the attempt to create [a] Goralenvolk was a failure... a mere 18 percent of the population took up Goralian IDs... Goralian schools [were] consistently boycotted, and... attempts to create a Goralian police or a Goralian Waffen-SS Legion... failed miserably."{{r|Wendt|p=98}}

Gestapo agent Hubert Jura vel Herbert Jung, known also by the nickname "Tom", was of mixed German and Polish ancestry. With his friends, Jura formed a group called Tom's Organization after being expelled from the Home Army due to criminal activity and, with German support, strove to take revenge.{{Cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Un-AAAAAIAAJ&q=Hubert+Jura+gestapo+agent |title=Polska walcząca |last=Ślaski |first=Jerzy |date=1999 |publisher=Rytm |isbn=9788387893316 |page=1037 |language=pl |trans-title=Poland Fighting |quote=Hubert Jura aka Herbert Jung ... acting as Captain Tom, in fact, a Gestapo agent (pl - Hubert Jura vel Herbert Jung...wystepujacy jako kapitan Tom w rzeczywistości agent gestapo.)}} They managed to insert themselves into the National Armed Forces, with Jura commanding a group of soldiers. In 1944, after the fall of the Warsaw Uprising, members of the Tom Organization came to Częstochowa. "Tom" received a villa from the Germans at Jasnogórska Street, which became the headquarter of the group for a few months. Later in 1944, a group of soldiers of the National Armed Forces commanded by Jura attacked the village of Petrykozy. According to the report from March 9, two Jews hiding there were murdered. After the war, most of the organization's members fled and Jura as well as his former associate, Gestapo member Paul Fuchs{{Cite web|url= https://czestochowa.wyborcza.pl/czestochowa/1,150461,19639282,katownia-przy-jasnogorskiej.html |title=Członek Brygady Świętokrzyskiej założył w Częstochowie katownię. Za wiedzą Niemców |first= Jarosław |last=Sobkowski |website=czestochowa.wyborcza.pl |access-date=2019-12-08 |language=pl}} operated for the US intelligence network created to work in the newly established countries controlled by the Soviet Union. Later, Jura moved to Venezuela, and in 1993 to Argentina.

In 1942, Ludwik Kalkstein started to collaborate with Blanka Kaczorowska for the Gestapo. Kalkstein and Kaczorowska were responsible for the subsequent capture and execution of several high ranking Polish underground Home Army officers, including General Stefan Rowecki.{{cite journal|url= https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=208193 |title=Kalkstein i Kaczorowska w świetle akt UB |journal=Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej |issue=8–09 |year=2004 |first=Waldemar |last=Grabowski |pages=87–100}} In 1944, Ludwik Kalkstein served in SS (during the Warsaw Uprising).{{Cite web|url=http://wyborcza.pl/7,161389,24017415,kalkstein-podwojny-agent-cale-zycie-ucieka.html|title=Kalkstein. Podwójny agent całe życie ucieka|website=wyborcza.pl|language=pl|access-date=2019-09-10}} His wife was protected by the Gestapo until the end of the war.

• Polish resistance movement in World War II
• Collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II
• Szmalcownik
• Trawniki
• Sonderkommando
• Sonderdienst
• Judenjagd

{{reflist|refs=

{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yGoxZEdw36oC&pg=PT114 | title=Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil |work=The Wannsee Conference, or Pontius Pilate | publisher=Penguin | isbn=978-1101007167 | date=2006 | access-date=16 June 2015 | author=Hannah Arendt| author-link=Hannah Arendt }}

{{cite journal|first=John |last=Connelly |title=Why the Poles Collaborated so Little: And Why That Is No Reason for Nationalist Hubris |journal=Slavic Review |volume=64 |number=4 |year=2005 |pages=771–781|url= https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272584372 |doi=10.2307/3649912 |jstor=3649912|doi-access=free }}

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{{Cite book| publisher = Springer| isbn = 978-1-349-09910-8| author-link = Józef Garliński|last = Garlinski| first = Josef| title = Poland in the Second World War| date = 1985-08-12}}

{{Cite book |title=The destruction of the European Jews |last=Hilberg |first=Raul |date=2003 |publisher=Yale University Press | author-link = Raul Hilberg | oclc=49805909}}

{{citation |first=Ryszard |last=Kaczmarek | author-link = Ryszard Kaczorowski| url=http://www.przeglad-tygodnik.pl/pl/artykul/wcieleni-do-wehrmachtu-rozmowa-prof-ryszardem-kaczmarkiem |title=Polacy w Wehrmachcie |trans-title=Poles in the Wehrmacht |publisher=Wydawnictwo Literackie |location=Kraków |date=2010 |isbn=978-83-08-04494-0 |quote=Paweł Dybicz for Tygodnik "Przegląd" 38/2012. |language=pl |access-date=June 28, 2014 |at=first paragraph |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121115002324/http://www.przeglad-tygodnik.pl/pl/artykul/wcieleni-do-wehrmachtu-rozmowa-prof-ryszardem-kaczmarkiem |archive-date=November 15, 2012}}

{{Cite book|title=The Eagle Unbowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World War |author-link = Halik Kochanski |last=Kochanski |first=Halik |publisher=Harvard University |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-674-06816-2 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts |page=97}}

{{cite journal|first=Klaus-Peter |last=Friedrich |title=Collaboration in a 'Land without a Quisling': Patterns of Cooperation with the Nazi German Occupation Regime in Poland during World War II |journal=Slavic Review |volume=64 |issue=4 |date=Winter 2005 |pages=711–746 |doi=10.2307/3649910|jstor=3649910 |doi-access=free }}

{{Cite book| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=hC0-dk7vpM8C&pg=PA128 |title= Poland's Holocaust: Ethnic Strife, Collaboration with Occupying Forces and Genocide in the Second Republic, 1918-1947| last=Piotrowski| first= Tadeusz| date=1998|publisher=McFarland|isbn=9780786403714|language=en}}

{{Cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=4tJvCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT394 |title=Notes From The Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal Of Emmanuel Ringelblum| author-link = Emmanuel Ringelblum| last=Ringelblum|first=Emmanuel|date=2015-11-06| publisher=Pickle Partners Publishing| isbn=9781786257161|language=en}}

{{Cite book| publisher = Tauris| isbn = 978-1-78076-477-1 | last = Winstone| first = Martin| title = The Dark Heart of Hitler's Europe: Nazi rule in Poland under the General Government| location = London| date = 2014 |pages=181–186}}

{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wGknBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA98|title=Eradicating Differences: The Treatment of Minorities in Nazi-Dominated Europe| first=Anton Weiss |last = Wendt | date=11 August 2010|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|isbn=978-1-4438-2449-1}}

{{Cite book| publisher = Cambridge University Press| isbn = 978-1-107-01426-8| last = Zimmerman| first = Joshua D.| title = The Polish underground and the Jews, 1939-1945| location = New York, NY| author-link = Joshua D. Zimmerman | date = 2015}}

}}

{{See also|Bibliography of Poland during World War II|Bibliography of the Soviet Union during World War II|Bibliography of Ukrainian history#World War II}}

• Dean, M. (2005). [https://doi.org/10.2307/3649914 Where Did All The Collaborators Go?] Slavic Review, 64(4), 791–798.
• Dean, M. (2007). [https://doi.org/10.2307/J.Ctv1Rmh03.21 Poles in the German Local Police in Eastern Poland and Their Role in the Holocaust]. In C. Freeze, P. Hyman, & A. Polonsky (Eds.), Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 18: Jewish Women in Eastern Europe (pp. 353–366). Liverpool University Press.
• Finder, G. N., & Prusin, A. V. (2008). [https://doi.org/10.2307/J.Ctv13Qfv1T.10 Jewish Collaborators on Trial in Poland 1944–1956]. In G. N. Finder, N. Aleksiun, A. Polonsky, & J. Schwarz (Eds.), Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 20: Making Holocaust Memory (pp. 122–148). Liverpool University Press.

{{Collaboration with Axis Powers}}

{{short description|Collaboration with Germans and German organizations in occupied-Poland during World War II}}

Category:Collaboration with Nazi Germany

Category:German occupation of Poland during World War II