225

Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

Collaboration and Resistance in
Wartime Poland (1939–1945) –
A Case for Differentiated Occupation Studies

In Quentin Tarantino’s uchronic war film Inglourious Basterds, a special combat unit
of Jewish-American soldiers sets out to kill Nazis. As a persiflage of the «Macaroni
Combat» B-movies of the 1970s, the film depicts a simplistic war of good against
evil. In the opening scene, SS Colonel Hans Landa – played as evil incarnate by Acad-
emy Award winner Christoph Waltz – threatens to kill a French farmer and his loved
ones if they do not reveal the whereabouts of a Jewish family he is hiding under his
cabin. The farmer finally breaks down, weeping, and Landa’s men shoot the Jews
through the floorboards. Only one young daughter manages to escape and, three
years later, together with the «Basterds», she burns down a cinema in Paris, trapping
Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, and other Nazi big-shots in the flames. Right at the end of
the film, First Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) pulls out a Bowie knife and carves a
swastika into Landa’s forehead.1
Although Inglourious Basterds plays with wartime stereotypes both deliberately
and deliriously, from the Western perspective of a frequent watcher of movies and
TV documentaries about the Second World War, it still resembles what the anti-Hit-
ler coalition had already presented: on the one hand, modern democracies (such as
Great Britain and the USA) led by the will of the people and respectful of human
rights, and on the other, anachronistic fascist or authoritarian regimes (such as Ger-
many, Italy, Romania and Japan). But it would be over-simplistic to apply such a di-
chotomy when depicting the real European (and global) political landscape between
1939 and 1945. In 1940, after the defeat of France, the cradle of European democ-
racy, a fascist puppet regime in Vichy began collaborating with the Third Reich.
Unlike Romania, Italy (which had stood alongside the Germans until 1943 and had
been ruled by a fascist elite from the early 1920s) refused to assist in implementing
the Holocaust in South-Eastern Europe. In the Pacific, US troops were engaged in a
war of races against Japan from 1942 onwards, which culminated in the atomic

1 Q. Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds, USA 2009. The no blindato, Italy 1978, and R. Aldrich’s The Dirty
film is based on E. G. Castellari’s Quel maledetto tre- Dozen, USA 1967.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 226 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Meanwhile, Soviet Russia is crucial to our

understanding of what happened in Poland during the war. It willingly sought com-
mon ground with the Nazis at first, then changed sides in 1941, obviously without
changing its totalitarian methods.2
The various ethnic and political interest groups within the nations embroiled in
the conflict also pursued different agendas. This often led not to concerted action,
but mutual antagonism, motivating them to establish new affiliations at home and
seek support from abroad. Therefore, between 1939 and 1945, changing coalitions
and contradictory contacts were not restricted to the highest levels of international
policy, but became common practice for almost all the stakeholders in the life-or-
death struggle in occupied Europe. As a rule, divide et impera strategies exacerbated
the ethnic distinctions in Nazi- and Soviet-occupied territories, but certain inter-
ethnic contacts did still occur in the fields of occupation, collaboration and resist-
ance.
In this essay, we aim to outline the significance of such trans- and intranational
ambivalences, with reference to the case of occupied Poland. The need to highlight
the complicated structures underlying and influencing the Polish population’s be-
haviour during the traumatic experience of war was demonstrated seventeen years
ago by a heated debate over Jews who had been murdered by their Christian neigh-
bours in summer 1941. That discussion, which caught international attention, was
triggered by Jan Tomasz Gross’ Neighbors, a controversial local study of the Eastern
Polish town of Jedwabne. Based mainly on reports from Jewish survivors and post-
war hearings in the Polish People’s Republic, Gross radically questioned the image
of natural solidarity among Poland’s various ethnic and religious groups under for-
eign occupation. As such, the book could have led to a more differentiated attitude to
occupation studies, yet instead it merely replaced the prevailing monochrome image
with another – that of bloodthirsty Polish thugs just waiting for the shift from Soviet
to Nazi rule, so they could enrich themselves, and kill the Jewish townsfolk in re-
venge for their alleged collaboration with the communists. Against this backdrop,
the book neglected to mention the Germans’ role as instigators of pogroms in the
area and creators of the framework for collaboration under occupation, which
changed fundamentally in June 1941.3 Another controversial event was the screen-

2 G. L. Weinberg, A World at Arms. A Global History eration Barbarossa», in: Polin 16 (2003), 431–445;
of World War II, Cambridge [a.o.] 1994; J. W. Dow- M. J. Chodakiewicz, The Massacre in Jedwabne, July
er, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacif- 10, 1941: Before, During, After, New York 2005;
ic War, 7th print., corr., New York 1993. B. Musial, «Thesen zum Pogrom in Jedwabne. Kri-
3 J. T. Gross, Neighbors. The Destruction of the Jewish tische Anmerkungen zu der Darstellung ‹Nach-
Community in Jedwabne, Poland, Princeton, NJ barn› von Jan Tomasz Gross», in: Jahrbücher für
2001 (Polish original: 2000). On the critical de- Geschichte Osteuropas 50 (2002)3, 381–411; P. Mach-
bate, see A. Rossino, «Polish ‹neighbours› and cewicz / K. Persak (eds.), Wokół Jedwabnego, vol. 1:
German invaders. Anti-Jewish violence in the Studia, vol. 2: Dokumenty, Warsaw 2002.
Białystok district during the opening weeks of Op-
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland 227

ing of the German TV documentary Generation War in 2013. Ostensibly, it challenged

existing stereotypes by making false generalisations about individual acts of an-
ti-Jewish violence committed by the Polish resistance, thus absurdly insinuating that
the latter had played a part in the Holocaust.4
As these two examples vividly demonstrate, one cannot learn any more about the
realities of wartime Poland simply by replacing old generalisations with new ones.
Instead, we advocate a more sophisticated approach, to honour the country’s singu-
lar historical setting, which we will present in section 2. Even by Central and Eastern
European standards, it boasted an extraordinary ethnic diversity; it was temporarily
occupied not by one, but two totalitarian neighbours; it became the scene of the Nazi
Holocaust; and – after three years’ absence – it was subsequently re-occupied by the
Red Army, a hostile takeover which lasted right up until the end of the Cold War in
1989. In sections 3 and 4, we trace the political and ethnic vicissitudes of collabora-
tion with – and resistance against – the Nazis and Soviets in occupied Poland, as il-
lustrated by two case studies: firstly, the «Trawniki men», an inter-ethnic group who
were entirely complicit in the German genocide against the Jewish and Polish popu-
lations in occupied areas of Poland; and, secondly, the Polish Underground State
(controlled by the country’s government-in-exile in London), which cooperated, com-
peted or fought with other resistance organisations and movements at home. By
painting a more multi-coloured picture, we are promoting a fresh, unbiased view of
the realities of occupation, collaboration and resistance in wartime Poland, in order
to move away from intense historiographical debate and closer to differentiated oc-
cupation studies. Finally, we will reassess the benefits of such an eclectic viewpoint,
and ponder its ramifications for remembrance policy and future research in Poland.

1. Occupation
Following the First World War, the situation for people in Eastern Europe was strik-
ingly different from that in the West of the continent. In 1921, the Treaty of Riga
demarcated the border between Poland and the Soviet Union. Both states were mul-
tinational entities that were both undesirable and unacceptable to local ethnic
groups. The Soviet Union alleged itself to be a multinational utopia, but in reality it
was an unjust system held together solely by the bayonets of the Red Army and the
terror of the NKVD secret police. It was home to numerous nations – such as Poles
(0.5 per cent), Germans (1 per cent), Jews (2 per cent), Belarusians (3 per cent) and
Ukrainians (21 per cent) – all of whom strove for freedom and independence, rather
than integration and fraternisation with their Russian fellow citizens, who made up
the majority of the population (53 per cent).5

4 M. Saryusz-Wolska / C. Piorun, «Verpasste Debatte.

Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter in Deutschland und Po-
len», in: Osteuropa 64 (2014) 11–12, 115–132.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 228 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

The Second Polish Republic, founded in November 1918 – more than a century
after the third partition of Poland by Prussia, Austria and Russia – was also charac-
terised by its heterogeneity. According to the 1931 census, ethnic Poles accounted for
approximately 70 per cent of the total population, followed by Ukrainians (14 per
cent), Jews (9 per cent), Belarusians (3 per cent) and Germans (2 per cent). During
the turbulent post-war years of 1918–1921 (when almost every border of the nascent
state had been established during armed clashes), tensions between the ethnic mi-
norities and Poland did not vanish, but grew more acute. Regardless of the minority
treaties signed after the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Polish government pres-
surised minorities in an attempt to Polonise them, particularly following the death
of its de facto leader, Józef Piłsudski, in 1935. State-sponsored police violence and re-
fusals to recognise autonomic rights only intensified existing resentment and, for
the Ukrainian population in particular, provoked a spiral of terrorist and anti-terror-
ist violence, while the Jewish population faced discrimination and an economic boy-
cott.6 The situation was further complicated by the fact that literally every one of the
aforementioned ethnic groups was divided by state borders. Therefore, even though
many of their members lived outside of Poland, they never entirely severed ties with
their kinsfolk back home.7
Unlike the German minority in the western part of the country, whose interests
and rights were resolutely protected by Weimar and Nazi Germany in the 1920s and
1930s (while the government in Warsaw took care of Polish expats), the Ukrainians
and Belarusians who lived in Poland lacked a strong lobby outside of the country,
since there were very few of them in Germany, and the large numbers living in the
Soviet Union were oppressed by the state. In 1932–1933, for example, a collectivisa-
tion-induced famine cost the lives of about 3.3 million people in Ukraine alone.8
In the late 1930s, relations between Berlin and Warsaw improved, and Hitler
sought to transform Poland into a valuable assistant in a future war against Soviet
«Judeo-Bolshevism». But this marriage of convenience had reached its limits by late
1938 and early 1939. Given Poland’s precarious geographical location, it had always
attempted to maintain a policy of balance between its neighbours to the East and the
West. Consequently, the government in Warsaw refused to join the Anti-Comintern
Pact, and rejected territorial concessions to Nazi Germany (the so-called «Corridor
Issue»). Although Hitler’s expansionist programme had always earmarked Russia as

5 K. Brown, A Biography of No Place. From Ethnic Bor- 7 J. Tomaszewski, Rzeczpospolita wielu narodów,
derlands to Soviet Heartland, Cambridge, MA 2003. Warsaw 1985, 25–258; idem, Ojczyzna nie tylko Po-
Figures from the 1926 census, according to laków. Mniejszości narodowe w Polsce w latach 1918–
F. Hirsch, Empire of Nations. Ethnographic Knowl- 1939, Warsaw 1985.
edge and the Making of the Soviet Union, Ithaca, NY 8 T. Snyder, Bloodlands. Europe between Hitler and
2005, 329–333. Stalin, New York 2010, 21–58.
6 J. Rothschild, East Central Europe Between the Two
World Wars, Seattle, WA, London 1992 (7th ed.; 1st
ed. 1974), 27–72, figures: 36.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland 229

future «living space» (Lebensraum) for the German people, in a surprising volte-face,
he decided that Poland – his designated «junior partner» against the Soviet Union
– was to become Germany’s next victim. In the summer of 1939, the Third Reich and
the Soviet Union approached each other and, to everyone’s surprise, this contact be-
tween two ideological arch-enemies culminated in the signing of the so-called Mol-
otov–Ribbentrop non-aggression pact on August 23, 1939. In a secret protocol, both
powers agreed to divide up their interests in Central and Eastern Europe, thus pre-
paring themselves for a potential war.9
In summary, the ethno-political topography of Poland between Nazi Germany
and Soviet Russia on the eve of the Second World War was extremely diversified and
highly unstable. The state borders drawn up in the wake of the First World War, two
decades earlier, were contested by all sides involved and transcended by rival resident
ethnicities. A new violent conflict was destined to shuffle the cards completely in
Central Europe, and beneath the surface of the maelstrom which was engulfing its
states, strong undercurrents of ethno-political turbulence were bound to emerge and
flow in often conflicting directions.

Poland under Nazi and Soviet Rule, 1939–1941

On September 1, 1939, the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland. On September 17,
the Red Army joined in to crush Poland from the East. On September 28, a «Treaty
of Friendship, Cooperation and Demarcation» was signed, thus sealing the fourth
partition of Poland within a century-and-a-half – this time between Nazi Germany
and the Soviet Union. While the latter annexed all the occupied eastern territories
into the Belarusian and Ukrainian Soviet Republics, the Third Reich only incorpo-
rated the western regions, and transformed central Poland into the so-called General
Government – a German pseudo-colony for enslaved Polish workers and a «dump-
ing ground» for racially undesirable groups. In the German zone, the overarching
policy towards defeated ethnic groups adhered to strictly racist principles. Only
members of the German minority (Volksdeutsche) were offered a chance to «upgrade»
to German citizenship. Ethnically, the Poles were classified as Slavs and, even though
they ranked higher than «subhumans» (Untermenschen) such as Jews, Sinti and
Roma, they were nevertheless regarded as «second-class citizens».
Up until the summer of 1941, Ukrainians and Belarusians were living in the
Soviet, not the German occupation zone. A strategy aimed at fragmenting Polish
society was also applied there, dividing it and antagonising its ethnic groups by em-
phasising their social differences, and evoking a class struggle. Particularly during
the first phase of the Soviet occupation (from September 1939 to autumn 1940), a

9 Snyder, Bloodlands, 119–154; S. Dębski, Między Ber- (eds.), Geneza paktu Hitler–Stalin. Fakty i propa-
linem a Moskwą. Stosunki niemiecko-sowieckie 1939– ganda, Warsaw 2012, 11–89.
1941, Warsaw 2003, 89–123; B. Musiał / J. Szumski
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 230 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

division between the «oppressive classes» and the ill-treated workers and peasants
was introduced, according to ethnic criteria. Polish citizens were mostly categorised
as «kulaks» (rich landlords exploiting non-Polish, mostly Ukrainian peasants) and
«oppressors», i.e. the potential «counter-revolutionary element»: landowners, civil
servants, policemen and the military. The «oppressed majority» was made up exclu-
sively of Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews, however. In practice, this mostly led to
persecution for Poles, who were dismissed from their jobs, placed under surveil-
lance, arrested, deported and eventually massacred. Their posts were filled by mem-
bers of the Ukrainian, Belarusian or Jewish minorities, regardless of their actual
competence, though only a relatively small number of Jews from Eastern Poland
opted for careers with the new administration, military and secret police. In general,
Jews were despised by all other ethnic groups for being visible and over-proportion-
ally represented members of the communist nomenklatura.10
Although we lack proof of direct cooperation between the Gestapo and the
NKVD, the similarities between Nazi and Soviet occupation policies from 1939 to
1941 were too striking to be a mere coincidence. Obviously, both sides kept a keen
watch on what was happening on the other side of the demarcation line.11 In both
occupation zones, the first wave of deadly violence used the same techniques of po-
litical cleansing, and was mainly directed against the Polish inter-war elite: the of-
ficers, teachers, priests, professors, artists, lawyers, and other members of the edu-
cated classes. In both cases, these programmes were implemented by the security
forces. By the end of 1939, in the course of the so-called Operation Tannenberg,
special German police units had killed up to 50.000–60.000 people, mainly in ter-
ritories which had been annexed by the German Reich, in breach of international
law. The wave of violence continued well into 1940, under the code name «Extraor-
dinary Operation of Pacification» (Außerordentliche Befriedungsaktion) which took the
lives of at least 6500 people (3500 resistance members and 3000 «criminals»).12

10 For more details on how the elite were replaced 11 A. Wirsching, «Antibolschewismus als Lernproz-
during the Soviet occupation: K. Jasiewicz, Pierwsi ess. Die Auseinandersetzung mit Sowjetrussland
po diable. Elity sowieckie w okupowanej Polsce 1939– in Deutschland nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg», in:
1941 (Białostocczyzna, Nowogródczyzna, Polesie, M. Aust / D. Schönpflug (eds.), Vom Gegner lernen.
Wileńszczyzna), Warsaw 2001, 27–238; M. Wier- Feindschaften und Kulturtransfers im Europa des 19.
zbicki, Polacy i Białorusini w zaborze sowieckim. und 20. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt am Main 2007,
Stosunki polsko-białoruskie na ziemiach północ- 137–156.
no-wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej pod okupacją 12 J. Matthäus / J. Böhler / K.-M. Mallmann (eds.), War,
sowiecką 1939–1941, Warsaw 2000, 213–313; idem, Pacification, and Mass Murder, 1939: The Einsatz-
Polacy i Żydzi w zaborze sowieckim. Stosunki pol- gruppen in Poland. Lanham, MD 2014, 17–30;
sko-żydowskie na ziemiach północno-wschodnich II D. Schenk, Hans Frank. Hitlers Kronjurist und Gen-
RP pod okupacją sowiecką (1939–1941), Warsaw eralgouverneur, Frankfurt am Main 2006, 184–191;
2001, 83–191; R. Torzecki, Polacy i Ukraińcy. Spra- M. Winstone, The Dark Heart of Hitler’s Europe:
wa ukraińska w czasie II wojny światowej na terenie Nazi Rule in Poland under the General Government,
II Rzeczypospolitej, Warsaw 1993, 69–113; Igor London 2014, 57–69; M. Housden, Hans Frank,
Il’iushin, Ukraïns’ka povstans’ka armiia i Armiia Lebensraum and the Holocaust, New York 2003,
Kraiova. Protistoiannia v Zakhidnii Ukraïni (1939– 120–121.
1945 rr.), Kyiv 2009, 85–167.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland 231

In April 1940, in the Soviet occupation zone, the NKVD killed about 22.000 of-
ficers of the Polish Armed Forces, who had been captured by the Red Army during
the 1939 invasion. Following months of surveillance, harassment, and failed attempts
to persuade them to collaborate, they were shot in the back of the head by a special
NKVD execution squad under personal orders from Stalin. Alleged anti-Soviet atti-
tudes among prisoners-of-war were the pretext for issuing this genocidal directive.13
Even at this early stage of the occupation, political and ethnic criteria were inex-
tricably entangled. Although these two mass killings were politically motivated, they
also deepened the ethnic rift in both occupation zones. By branding educated Poles
and Jews a security threat to the German community, the Third Reich’s racial policy
was clearly politicised. By specifically labelling members of the Polish elite as «coun-
ter-revolutionary elements», the Soviet Union’s reason of state – the class struggle –
was ethnicised.
Mass deportation was another technique employed by both occupiers in order to
radically alter the composition of the population. In 1939, all over the so-called incor-
porated areas, a search began for «German blood» that could be appropriated for the
German Reich by means of the German racial list (Volksliste), while the remaining
«racially inferior» population was to be deported to the General Government, which
had been earmarked for Germanisation, if Germany were to win the war. At first, the
Germans imagined it as a dwelling place for the Polish people (Wohnstätte des polnis-
chen Volks). The Jewish and ethnically Polish populations were most affected, as they
were deemed unfit for Germanisation. Despite bombastic statements and sweeping
plans, their deportation from the so-called «stolen lands» was marked by chaotic
organisation and blatant incompetence, and was often improvised. Even though con-
siderable numbers of police were involved, they were relatively ineffective, fluctuat-
ing under 50 per cent of their planned deportee quotas, yet they still assisted in de-
porting around 460.000 Jews and Poles.14
Deportations were organised differently on the Soviet side. Ethnic criteria were
also applied, and citizens of the Second Polish Republic in particular were deported
from occupied territories. They were mostly Polish military, policemen, foresters,

13 Regarding the Katyn massacre, A. Paul, Katyn. Sta- Politik des Reichs gegenüber dem Generalgouverne-
lin’s Massacre and the Seeds of Polish Resurrection, ment 1939–1945, (PhD) Frankfurt am Main 1969,
Annapolis, MD 1996; A. Przewoźnik / J. Adamska, 178–194; I. Heinemann, «Rasse, Siedlung, deutsches
Katyń. Zbrodnia. Prawda. Pamięć, Warsaw 2010; Blut». Das Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt der SS und
regarding the perpetrators of the massacre, die rassenpolitische Neuordnung Europas, Göttingen
W. Abarianow, Oprawcy z Katynia, Kraków 2007. 2003, 187–303; G. Wolf, Ideologie und Herrschafts-
14 P. T. Rutherford, Prelude to the Final Solution. The rationalität. Nationalsozialistische Germanisierung-
Nazi Program for Deporting Ethnic Poles, 1939–1941, spolitik in Polen, Hamburg 2012, 107–265;
Lawrence, KA 2007, 74–193; M. Broszat, National- C. Łuczak, Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna hitle-
sozialistische Polenpolitik 1939–1945, Stuttgart 1961, rowskich Niemiec w okupowanej Polsce, Poznań
85–102; C. Madajczyk, Die Okkupationspolitik Na- 1979, 117–136.
zideutschlands in Polen 1939–1945, Berlin (East)
1987, 233–260; G. Eisenblätter, Grundlinien der
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 232 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

civil servants and their families, as well as increasing numbers of «class enemies»
who were deported irrespective of their ethnic origin, and included many Ukraini-
ans, Belarusians and Jews. Soviet deportations were meticulously planned and
preceded by intense police infiltration. They were carried out using substantial po-
lice and military forces, often with one guard per three deportees. In the repressive
Soviet penal system, surveillance of all state bodies was hugely effective, and finally
resulted in 330.000 to 340.000 people being deported from their homes to far-flung
regions of the Soviet Union.15
In September 1939, as German units crossed onto Polish soil and the Soviets
invaded from the East, the swift defeat of the Polish forces sent shockwaves through
Polish society. Nobody was able or wanted to believe that the Polish army could have
been beaten so quickly. The uncontrollable march of the Wehrmacht divisions, the
attack by the Soviet Union in the East two-and-a-half weeks later, the mass repres-
sion of civilians, and the sustained bombardment of cities and refugee columns all
caused the Polish state to collapse. The Polish government left the capital just before
the siege of Warsaw, fleeing across the Romanian border to seek political asylum.
Most social and political organisations, professional and trade unions, youth, sport-
ing and cultural organisations closed down, or were banned by the occupiers. As
politics, society and culture were increasingly disrupted, family ties were also weak-
ened. Many families were broken up due to military mobilisation, the wave of refu-
gees, or widespread chaos due to the impending turmoil of war. Many people were
thus deprived of the support of their own families, just when they needed it most. A
growing feeling of uncertainty and fear for the future was exacerbated by a snowball-
ing ethnic breakdown of the multi-cultural Polish society into its constituent groups.
As the danger increased, they began fighting for survival, often competing against
one another.16 This process was also deliberately aggravated by pressure from both
aggressors, eager to weaken the civic unity of the Polish state. As a result, instead of
a close-knit Polish society standing united against both occupiers, only isolated eth-
nic groups remained, often riven with mutual hostilities: the Poles, Jews, Ukrainians
and others all had fears and prejudices which could be exploited to subjugate them,
according to the old maxim of divide et impera.17

15 S. Ciesielski / G. Hryciuk / A. Srebrakowski, Masowe Nation. Die polnische Gesellschaft unter deutscher
deportacje ludności w Związku Radzieckim, Toruń und sowjetischer Herrschaft 1939–1941», in:
2004, 206–261; A. Głowacki, Sowieci wobec Po- K.-M. Mallmann / B. Musial (eds.), Genesis des Ge-
laków na ziemiach wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej nozids. Polen 1939–1941, Darmstadt 2004, 145–147.
1939–1941, Łódź 1998, 320–403; P. Polian, Wbrew 17 C. Łuczak, Polityka ludnościowa i ekonomiczna hitle-
ich woli. Historia i geografia migracji przymusowych rowskich Niemiec w okupowanej Polsce, Poznań 1979,
w Związku Radzieckim, Gdańsk 2015, 103–107; 117–130; H.-J. Bömelburg / B. Musial, Die deutsche Be-
S. Ciesielski / W. Materski / A. Paczkowski (eds.), satzungspolitik in Polen 1939–1945, in: W. Borod-
Represje sowieckie wobec Polaków i obywateli polskich, ziej / K. Ziemer (eds.), Deutsch–polnische Beziehun-
Warsaw 2002, 15–21, 32. gen 1939–1945–1949. Eine Einführung, Osnabrück
16 K. Wyka, Życie na niby. Szkice z lat 1939–1945, War- 2000, 91–93.
saw 1985, 90–91; J. A. Młynarczyk, «Die zerissene
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 Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland 233

Soon, on top of the escalating mayhem of political, social and cultural collapse
came an economic crash that struck urban areas doubly hard, for they contained the
bulk of the factories, manufacturing and craft workshops, shops and banking insti-
tutions. Many people had lost their financial resources and failed to stock up on
iron rations for survival, so they were forced to sell valuable belongings, jewellery,
foreign currency, furniture, paintings, etc. in order to survive another week.18 In the
middle of the partitioned country, the tough predicament of those in the General
Government deteriorated further due to the growing influx of refugees and the mass
deportations, which began in late 1939/early 1940 and continued, with varying
intensity, throughout the entire occupation. Hundreds of thousands of people de-
ported from the westernmost areas of the Republic had to be taken in, assigned
accommodation, kitted out, and fed, regardless of the personal needs and shortages
of the local residents.
The ethnic disintegration of Polish society was even more pronounced in the
Soviet occupation zone. This was because, right from the start of the hostilities, the
Soviets had been stirring up anti-Polish feeling among members of national minor-
ities in the Second Republic (Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Jews in particular), with
slogans proclaiming that the downtrodden minority masses would be freed from the
«whip of the Polish lords».19 Even in wartime, this led to mass anti-Polish action,
including by Jewish communist sympathisers, who joyfully greeted the invading Red
Army divisions, joined communist organisations and local militias, and were in-
volved in arresting local Polish state officials. There was also armed violence by
Ukrainian and – to a lesser extent – Belarusian nationalists. All this resulted in the
murders of between 12.000 and 14.000 Polish soldiers, policemen, civil servants
and simple residents.20
Thus, neither of the occupying regimes left any alternative but total subjugation
to their respective totalitarian doctrines. Ruthless policies of persecution, deporta-
tion and pauperisation destroyed existing societal and family networks in both occu-
pation zones, while exacerbating pre-war ethnic tensions. It was this combined pro-
cess of atomisation and antagonism which bred an atmosphere of ubiquitous
insecurity, arbitrariness and menace. In this situation, each individual in occupied
territory had a choice of three options: adaptation, collaboration, or resistance. And
whatever they chose, it was essential for their survival and, predictably, did not always
depend on ethnic loyalties or political preferences.

18 L. Landau, Kronika lat wojny i okupacji, vol. 1: 20 R. Szawłowski, Antypolskie wystąpienia na Kresach
wrzesień 1939 – listopad 1940, Warsaw 1962, 39 Wschodnich (1939–1941), in: Encyklopedia «białych
(19.10.–26.10.1939). plam», vol. 1 (A-Ar), Radom 2000, 165–169;
19 For example: Dokument nr 84: Ocena sytuacji J. A. Młynarczyk, «Niemieckie plany wobec ludnoś-
przed frontem 10 Armii, IX.–X.1939, płk. Agarkow, ci Polski i ich realizacja w 1939 roku», in: T. Kon-
in: C. Grzelak, Agresja sowiecka na Polskę w świetle dracki (ed.), Spojrzenie na polski wrzesień 1939 roku,
dokumentów. 17 września 1939. Vol. 3, Warsaw 1995, Warsaw 2011, 125–138.
162.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 234 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

The German Genocidal Programme Unleashed (1941–1944/45)

The German–Soviet agreement had an expiry date right from the outset. After its
victory over France in 1940, Nazi Germany prepared itself for an attack on the Soviet
Union, which was launched in the summer of 1941. In the Nazi zone, ethnic ten-
sions entered a new phase. A wave of pogroms, predominantly initiated by the Ger-
mans, swept through «liberated» Eastern Poland, costing the lives of several thou-
sand Jews accused by Poles and Ukrainians of collaborating with the Soviets.21 Except
for this short transition period, however, the exterminations in occupied Poland were
a purely German policy. As the Polish resistance movement grew, anti-partisan oper-
ations became increasingly frequent and lethal, culminating in the bloody suppres-
sion of the Warsaw Uprising in autumn 1944, with 150.000 mostly civilian victims.22
Hundreds of thousands of Polish civilians were captured and deported to the Reich
for slave labour, to replace German soldiers who had been posted to the Eastern
Front. There they faced discrimination and abuse, and an estimated 150.000 «East-
ern Workers» (Ostarbeiter), mostly abducted from Poland and the Soviet Union, did
not survive their ordeal.23
By summer 1941, Jews had already been outlawed in German-occupied Poland
for almost two years, and many were murdered, or died of disease and malnutrition,
but their systematic persecution was still limited to forcing them to live apart
from society. The Jews were concentrated in so-called «ghettos» (special areas in
hundreds of occupied Polish towns and villages), with plans to deport them in the
future. When the invasion of Russia was halted in late 1941, the Nazis’ plans
changed to exterminations in situ. By the end of the war, between 2.975.000 and
3.150.000 Jews from Poland had been slaughtered in the death camps of Kulmhof,
Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, Majdanek and Treblinka, or shot during mass deporta-
tions from ghettos and camps, died of starvation or had to flee the occupied Polish
territories. Approximately the same number of Jews deported to Poland from
other European countries suffered the same fate.24 The Soviet Union had become
neither Hitler’s dreamt-of reservation to resolve the «Jewish question» once and for
all, nor a safe haven for European Jews: by early 1940, Stalin had already declined a

21 W. Mędykowski, W cieniu gigantów. Pogromy 1941 r. according to A. K. Kunert, «Bezpowrotne polskie

w byłej sowieckiej strefie okupacyjnej: Kontekst histo- straty osobowe w Powstaniu Warszawskim», in:
ryczny, społeczny i kulturowy, Warsaw 2012; M. Try- W. Materski / T. Szarota (eds.), Polska 1939–1945.
czyk, Miasta śmierci. Sąsiedzkie pogromy Żydów, Straty osobowe i ofiary represji pod dwiema okupac-
Warsaw 2015; A. Żbikowski, U genezy Jedwabnego. jami, Warsaw 2009, 185.
Żydzi na Kresach Północno-Wschodnich II Rzeczypo- 23 D. Pohl, Verfolgung und Massenmord in der NS-Zeit
spolitej, wrzesień 1939 – lipiec 1941, Warsaw 2006, 1933–1945, Darmstadt 2003, 61. For further read-
167–231. ing, M. T. Allen, Hitler’s Slave Lords: The Business of
22 General information on German anti-partisan Forced Labour in Occupied Europe, Stroud 2004.
warfare in Poland: D. Brewing, Im Schatten von 24 G. Berendt, «Straty osobowe polskich Żydów w
Auschwitz. Deutsche Massaker an polnischen Zivilis- okresie II wojny światowej», in: Materski / Szarota
ten 1939–1945, Darmstadt 2016; on the Warsaw (eds.), Polska 1939–1945, 75; Pohl, Verfolgung, 109.
Uprising, see Snyder, Bloodlands, 298–310; figure
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 Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland 235

German «offer» to resettle the 2.2 million Jews from the Reich and General Govern-
ment to the «Workers’ Paradise», whose political elite was also somewhat anti-
Semitic.25

The Soviet Union’s New Alliances, 1941–1945

The German offensive against the USSR led to a major shift in Stalin’s policy. The
German aggression had forced him to seek alliances, firstly with Great Britain, then
America following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This devastated any chances
of Polish territory being restored to its pre-Second World War borders. Even though
the Soviet Union was reeling from the powerful blows of the German war machine,
Stalin had no intention of giving up the lands plundered from Poland through his
military intervention in 1939. As it turned out, the Western allies were soon prepared
to sacrifice Poland for their budding alliance with the Soviets. Meanwhile, Stalin’s
appetite began to grow after the Red Army’s successful march on Berlin. As soon as
the Red Army crossed the border of the Second Polish Republic near Rokitno, on the
night of January 3, 1944, the Soviets began to disseminate slogans claiming that the
Polish lands would be liberated from German occupation, provided that they accept
a new political regime, and install obedient political and military authorities in a fu-
ture republic modelled on the Soviet system. The legitimate Polish government-in-
exile was increasingly embattled, as its political legitimacy and the support of its
allies diminished with every kilometre the Soviets gained in their unstoppable
march westwards. Mutual hostilities reached their peak after the Polish Committee
of National Liberation was formed in Lublin in July 1944. Backed by Moscow, it acted
as a puppet Polish government, wholly dependent on Stalin in the Polish territory
liberated by the Soviets. At the same time, disregarding appeals from both the Poles
and the Allies, the Red Army proceeded to disarm or destroy Polish Underground
units (the Home Army and National Armed Forces), claiming that they harboured
anti-communist attitudes, and regularly accusing them of collaboration with the
Germans.26

2. Collaboration
Although different types of collaboration were extremely widespread among civilians
in occupied countries during the Second World War, it still poses quite a problem for
historians analysing the attitudes of the people living under foreign occupation. This
is mostly due to the sheer complexity of the phenomenon, and the lack of precise
terminology to describe it. The term «collaboration» is used rather loosely, and often

25 P. Polian, «Hätte der Holocaust beinahe nicht statt- Ermordung der europäischen Juden, Munich 2008,
gefunden?: Überlegungen zu einem Schriftwech- 1–19.
sel im Wert von zwei Millionen Menschenleben», 26 A. Applebaum, The Iron Curtain. The Crushing of
in: J. Hürter / J. Zarusky (eds.), Besatzung, Kollabo- Eastern Europe, 1944–1956, New York 2012, 3–87.
ration, Holocaust. Neue Studien zur Verfolgung und
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 236 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

differs not only in the range of behaviour it covers, but also semantically. Jan T. Gross
rightly remarked several years ago that, for a long time, the concept of «collabora-
tion» was used neutrally to mean «cooperation», whereas the axiological interpreta-
tion implying «betrayal» only appeared in the context of the Second World War.27
The concept generally referred to events that occurred under German occupation,
then gradually came to mean various forms of occupation in other wars.28 Gross
accounts for using the «narrow sense of the term» by stating that the German occu-
pation was unique in Europe, because of the stark contrast «between its possible,
potential and ultimate outcomes. Since the phenomenon of choosing to cooperate
with the German occupiers during the Second World War was completely unique (as
embroilment had turned into ‹collaboration›), it was a disparity, a gulf between obli-
gation [...] and its actual outcome, which allowed those who had adapted to the new
order to discover what they had really been a part of».29
The concept of «collaboration» is currently used to describe certain forms of co-
operation between a subjugated population and an occupier, regardless of their
country of origin or the prevailing political system. «Collaboration» is usually re-
garded as cooperating with an occupying force that clearly harms the interests of the
subjugated population or state, whereas interaction with occupying authorities to
preserve vital state institutions in occupied areas and shield the population from the
effects of war as much as possible is normally called «cooperation». The eminent
Polish historian Tomasz Szarota defined it as follows: «Collaboration means cooper-
ating with the occupier while simultaneously refusing to heed explicit bans and
warnings from the Polish Underground State. This could be used by the occupiers
for propaganda purposes, and be damaging to one’s own national [ethnic] group».30
Since the 1980s, in spite of the methodological difficulties, a wide range of col-
lective studies have been published regarding collaboration in occupied parts of Eu-
rope.31 Even though historians have shown increasing interest in the phenomenon,

27 J. T. Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation: cooperates with the occupying authorities (e.g.
The Generalgouvernement, 1939–1944, Princeton Germany, Italy, Japan), to the detriment of the
1979, 117–120 (especially annot. 1); idem, «Jeder country or its citizens […]; c[ollaboration] was
lauscht ständig, ob die Deutschen nicht schon deemed a crime in Poland and other occupied
kommen. Die zentralpolnische Gesellschaft und countries».
der Völkermord», in: W. Borodziej / K. Ziemer 29 Gross, «Jeder lauscht», 228.
(eds.), Deutsch-polnische Beziehungen 1939–1945– 30 T. Szarota, «Kollaboration mit deutschen und sow-
1949. Eine Einführung, Osnabrück 2000, 224–226 jetischen Besatzern aus polnischer Sicht – damals,
(especially annot. 18). gestern, heute», in: W. Röhr (ed.), Okkupation und
28 This was particularly emphasised in communist Kollaboration (1938–1945). Beiträge zu Konzeption
Poland, in an attempt to divert attention from So- und Praxis der Kollaboration in der deutschen Okku-
viet occupation policy by highlighting the German pationspolitik, Berlin, Heidelberg 1994, 341.
occupation. Even today, this understanding of the 31 To name only the most recent literature: M. Dean,
term persists in some encyclopaedia entries. For Collaboration in the Holocaust. Crimes of the Local
example, the Wielka Encyklopedia PWN, vol. 14, Police in Belorussia and Ukraine, 1941–1944, New
Warsaw 2003, 110, defines the concept of «collabo- York 2000; C. Dieckmann / B. Quinkert / T. Tönsmey-
ration» as «a term dating back to World War II, to er (eds.), Kooperation und Verbrechen. Formen der
describe when a citizen of an occupied country «Kollaboration» im östlichen Europa 1939–1945,
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland 237

there has never been a study on collaboration in occupied Poland, neither in the
Soviet, nor the German occupation zones.32 Despite this major gap, the last few dec-
ades have seen numerous academic articles,33 chapters in papers on broader issues
concerning occupied Poland in the Second World War,34 and academic studies into
Polish involvement in persecuting the Jewish population during the Holocaust.35
Also, for the first time, works have been published discussing the attitudes of Polish
intellectuals under the Soviet occupation.36
In both the German and Soviet occupation zones, active collaboration depended
on the severity of the occupation, and whether the invaders themselves were amena-
ble. Both partitioners saw Poland’s multi-ethnic society as a miscellany of peoples,
each of which was invited to collaborate individually. The circumstances in the Soviet
occupation zone forced the majority of Poles to accept the reality. In spite of their po-
litical reluctance, people had to find work in the state sector, which covered almost
every branch of the economy, due to the systematic elimination of private ownership.
From late 1940 onwards, the Soviet authorities toned down their anti-Polish cam-
paign and began accepting Polish employees in the Soviet administrative, educational
and cultural systems, but this came at a price. Just like the members of other ethnic

Göttingen 2003; J. Tauber (ed.), «Kollaboration» in brück 2009, 319–343; J. A. Młynarczyk, «Zwischen
Nordosteuropa. Erscheinungsformen und Deutungen Kooperation und Verrat. Zum Problem der Kollabo-
im 20. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden 2006; R.-D. Müller, ration im Generalgouvernement 1939–1945», in:
An der Seite der Wehrmacht. Hitlers ausländische ibid., 345–383; G. Motyka, «Die Kollaboration in den
Helfer beim «Kreuzzug gegen den Bolschewismus» Ostgebieten der Zweiten Polnischen Republik 1941–
1941–1945, Berlin 2007; L. Rein, The Kings and the 1944», in: ibid., 385–404.
Pawns. Collaboration in Byelorussia during World 34 Sample chapters: «Collaboration and Cooperation»,
War II, New York 2011; P. Carrard, The French Who in: Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation.
Fought for Hitler. Memories from the Outcasts, Cam- 117–144; the chapter: «Podziemne sądownictwo
bridge, New York 2011. Państwa Polskiego 1940–1942. Problemy kolabo-
32 A. Zasieczny’s interesting work Zdrajcy, donosiciele i racji», in: T. Strzębosz, Rzeczpospolita podziemna.
konfidenci w okupowanej Polsce 1939–1945, Warsaw Społeczeństwo polskie a państwo podziemne 1939–
2016, lacks professional academic rigour; the first 1945, Warsaw 2000, 88–129; the chapter: «Trudny
study of the phenomenon in the area was: W. W. Bed- temat – kolaboracja», in: T. Szarota, Karuzela na
narski, Kolaboracja na Lubelszczyźnie i Podlasiu w lat- Placu Krasińskich. Studia i szkice z lat wojny i okupac-
ach wojny i okupacji niemiecko-sowieckiej, Lublin 2013. ji, Warsaw 2007, 69–145.
33 Again only the most recent ones: R. M. Kunicki, 35 For example: J. T. Gross, Upiorna dekada 1939–1948.
«Unwanted Collaborators Leon Kozłowski, Władys- Trzy eseje o stereotypach na temat Żydów, Polaków,
ław Studnicki and the Problem of Collaboration Niemców i komunistów, Kraków 1998; idem, Neigh-
among Polish Conservative Politicians in World War bors; P. Machcewicz / K. Persak (eds.), Wokół Jedwab-
II», in: European Review of History 8 (2001), 2, 203– nego, vol. 1: Studia, vol. 2: Dokumenty, Warsaw 2002;
220; K. P. Friedrich, «Zusammenarbeit und Mittäter- Chodakiewicz, The Massacre in Jedwabne; B. Engel-
schaft in Polen 1939–1945», in: Dieckmann / Quin- king, Jest taki piękny, słoneczny dzień… Losy Żydów
kert / Tönsmeyer (eds.), Kooperation und Verbrechen, szukających ratunku na wsi polskiej 1942–1945, War-
113–150; P. Majewski, «Kolaboracja której nie było… saw 2011; J. Grabowski, Hunt for the Jews. Betrayal
Problem postaw społeczeństwa polskiego w warunk- and Murder in German-Occupied Poland, Blooming-
ach okupacji niemieckiej 1939–1945», in: Dzieje ton 2013.
Najnowsze 36 (2004) 4, 59–71; R. Kaczmarek, «Die 36 B. Urbankowski, Czerwona msza czyli uśmiech Stali-
Kollaboration in den eingegliederten Ostgebieten na, Warsaw 1995; J. Trznadel, Kolaboranci. Tadeusz
1939–1945», in: J. A. Młynarczyk (ed.), Polen unter Boy-Żeleński i grupa komunistycznych pisarzy we
deutscher und sowjetischer Besatzung 1939–1945, Osna- Lwowie 1939–1941, Komorów 1998.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 238 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

groups, Poles were exposed to the effects of omnipresent communist propaganda,

under constant surveillance from party activists, police informers, their own neigh-
bours and eventually even members of their own families. «Disloyal individuals»
were registered, and subjected to all manner of repression designed to realign them
with the «one true Soviet ideology». If they were found to be «counter-revolutionary
elements», they faced imprisonment and torture, and were sentenced to years of exile
in the camps of the infamous «Gulag Archipelago», or even murdered. In so doing,
the Soviets tried hard to break people who were already mentally unbalanced by war-
fare, leaving them in a permanent moral quandary. Their system of values was con-
stantly rejected; their loyalty to the state, nation, and their own families questioned.
This social engineering experiment was supposed to result in the creation of a new
«Homo Sovieticus» who, irrespective of his roots and former beliefs, would remain
ever faithful to «his» Stalinist fatherland. The fact that the Soviets sought to foster
moral relativism, instil the worst possible character traits, and sever all social and
family ties was considered not just inevitable, but even desirable.37
For the German occupiers, ethnicity was an indicative factor for collaboration.
Jews were treated as «subhumans» and were ordered to form Jewish councils (Juden-
räte) to serve as intermediaries between the German authorities and the Jewish com-
munity, as well as a Jewish Police Service and a Jewish Social Self-Help committee
(ŻSS) to distribute charitable aid. These institutions were set up expressly to carry
out German orders, and any attempts to develop private initiatives were nipped in
the bud. Ethnic Poles were better off, since they could take up lower-level posts in the
occupiers’ civil administration. Since no so-called Volksdeutsche or Ukrainians were
available, the Poles were ordered to create regular police squads, a.k.a. the Navy-Blue
Police, and were allowed to set up a Central Welfare Council (RGO) to organise all
charitable aid for the Polish civilian population. In the General Government, Ukrain-
ians were in a better position than Poles: they were commonly employed in lower-
and medium-level administrative posts, a Ukrainian police force was set up, and they
were recruited into auxiliary police units (Hilfspolizei, Schutzmannschaften) and even
the 14th SS-Volunteer Division «Galicia». The deliberate weakening of inter-ethnic
ties and widespread fragmentation of Polish society meant that the German author-
ities virtually abandoned their idea to create inter-ethnic institutions for collabora-
tion. Instead, they formed analogous but independent bodies to cater for individual
nationalities within Poland’s subjugated society, e.g. the RGO for Poles, the ŻSS for
the Jewish population and the Ukrainian Central Committee for the Ukrainian mi-
nority. The situation was similar with policing: they created the so-called Navy-Blue
Police for the Polish community, the Jewish Police Service in Jewish ghettos and ar-
eas and the Ukrainian Police for Ukrainians.

37 A. Głowacki, Sowieci wobec Polaków na ziemiach

wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej 1939–1941, Łódź
1998, 592–617.
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 Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland 239

The only exceptions to this rule were the Wachmannschaften des SS- und
Polizeiführers im Distrikt Lublin, known colloquially as the «Trawniki men» (or
«Trawniki» for short), named after the place where they underwent their military
training. These units were also known by other names, such as «askaris» (referring
to local collaborators in Germany’s West African colonies in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth century), «blacks» (from the dominant colour of their uniforms), or
simply «Ukrainians», «Latvians» or «Lithuanians», depending on the unit members’
predominant country of origin and, hence, the language they used to communicate
with the locals. These units were formed on the personal initiative of Odilo Globoc-
nik, the SS and Police Leader in Lublin district. In early July 1941, when appointed
as Heinrich Himmler’s deputy to establish SS and police strongholds (SS- und
Polizeistützpunkte) in Eastern areas, he decided to set up his own paramilitary units
to help implement an ambitious population policy aimed at Germanising the areas
under his jurisdiction. Making the most of newly passed regulations on recruiting
Soviet prisoners of war into volunteer units (Hilfswillige), Globocnik decided to
create his own guard units, comprising young volunteers (of any nationality except
Russian) who knew some basic German and displayed at least some kind of anti-
Soviet attitudes.
In this way, hundreds of recruits of various nationalities (including Ukrainians,
Lithuanians, Latvians, Croatians, Russians [accepted in spite of previous reserva-
tions], Volksdeutsche, plus a small number of Poles) ended up at the SS training camp
in Trawniki near Lublin.38 There, they were divided into companies of 150 men,
made up of platoons of 30 to 50 recruits. Company commanders were usually re-
cruited among ethnic Germans, while platoons could be commanded by Volks-
deutsche. Consequently, the majority of recruits came from the ranks of the Red
Army, so were familiar with military routine and weapons-handling. Their military
training was very cursory, covering the use of standard and machine pistols, rifles
and grenades. Great importance was attached to acquainting recruits with the cor-
rect German terminology and basic drill skills. There was also special training on
organising deportations, escorting prisoners, and carrying out searches. The curric-
ulum even covered the procedure during executions.39 Training would last from one
to several weeks, yet rarely attempted to bring in any ideology. Since the recruits
spoke many languages, but only had a poor knowledge of German (ostensibly the
official language), very limited communication was possible, so that complex ideo-
logical content would have been hard to get across. Freshly uniformed, equipped,

38 The interrogation of Paul Becker, 15.9.1969, im Generalgouvernement 1941–1944, Osnabrück

Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen Duisburg, Ab- 2004, 315–318; regarding Polish «Trawniki»:
teilung Rheinland (LA Duisburg), Gerichte Rep. M. Bem, Sobibór – niemiecki ośrodek zagłady 1942–
388, No. 384, 146; P. Black, «Die Trawniki-Männer 1943, Włodawa, Sobibór 2011, 271–274.
und die ‹Aktion Reinhard›», in: B. Musial (ed.) 39 Munich prosecutors’ verdict I, 1155 Js 12496/08,
«Aktion Reinhardt». Der Völkermord an den Juden versus John Demjanjuk, 10.7.2009, 20.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 240 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

and armed with rifles after their training, the «Trawniki» would wait at the camp
until assigned to serve at a specific outpost.
Even though Globocnik had initially planned for the unit to become the primary
auxiliary force for establishing SS and police strongholds, he soon abandoned the
idea. This was mostly because Heinrich Himmler redefined his duties, and trans-
ferred him from overseeing the strongholds in late March 1942 to put him in charge
of Operation Reinhard, which aimed to exterminate the Jews in Central Poland.40
This large-scale extermination plan included all Jewish communities and ghettos in
the General Government and Białystok district, and required «specialists» experi-
enced in mass deportation, who could quickly and efficiently manage large groups of
people during such operations. While the deportations were at the planning stage,
companies of «Trawniki» numbering 100 to 150 men were dispatched to individual
districts, and made subordinate to local SS and Police Leaders. They could then be
sent out in smaller or larger units as required, to deal with specific deportations. This
was the case, for example, in Radom and Kraków districts. In Warsaw and Białystok
districts, «Trawniki» were sent into action directly from Lublin, commanded by repre-
sentatives of Operation Reinhard’s deportation headquarters.41 Apart from assisting in
the liquidation of small and large ghettos in Central Poland, «Trawniki» also served as
guards in German concentration and death camps. They acted as intermediaries be-
tween the German garrison and the prisoners, and answered directly to their German
superiors. During the deportations and in the camps themselves, the «askaris» were
notorious for their extreme brutality. This was enhanced by the German supervision,
which rendered them over-zealous, for fear of being held accountable and sent back to
prisoner-of-war camps, where they would face starvation or even execution. By the end
of Operation Reinhard, «Trawniki» were also used to pacify villages suspected of sym-
pathising with the Polish resistance movement. There, too, they gained a reputation
for sheer brutality towards local residents, whose testimonies many years later still
mentioned those units in particular, and recalled how brutal they had been.42

40 J. A. Młynarczyk, «An der Seite der Deutschen. Der BArch B 162/14573, 80; in Białystok district: the
Einsatz von Trawniki-Männern in den Augen testimony of Roman Pitrow, 29.10.1962, op.cit.;
jüdischer und polnischer Zeitzeugen», in: the testimony of Selman Judelbaum, 5.11.1962,
F. Zaugg / J. A. Młynarczyk (eds.), Ost- und Südeu- ibid., 4784.
ropäer in der Waffen-SS. Kulturelle Aspekte und his- 42 A. Benz, Handlanger der SS. Die Rolle der Trawni-
torischer Kontext, Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissen- ki-Männer im Holocaust, Berlin 2015, 205–248;
schaft 7/8 (2017), 644. S. Berger / A. Censebrunn-Benz, «Zwischen Deut-
41 Regarding «Trawniki» in Radom district: the testi- schen und Juden: Die ‹Trawnikis› in den Vernich-
mony of Erich Kapke (their commander in the tungslagern der ‹Aktion Reinhardt›», in: Zaugg /
whole district), 2.3.1970, BArch B 162/6604, Młynarczyk, Ost- und Südeuropäer, 627–641; Mły-
1078–1079; in Kraków district: the testimony of narczyk, An der Seite, 644–653; P. Black, «Police
Roman Pitrow, 29.10.1962, StA Hamburg, 213–12, Auxiliaries for Operation Reinhard: Shedding
Staatsanwaltschaft LG (NSG) 0039/011, 4734; in Light on the Trawniki Training Camp through
Warsaw district: the testimony of Georg Michalsen, Documents from behind the Iron Curtain», in:
24.1.1961, BArch B 162/6855, 102; the verdict of D. Bankier (ed.), Secret Intelligence and the Holo-
LG Hamburg in the case of Ludwig Hahn, 4.7.1975, caust, New York, Jerusalem 2006, 327–366.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland 241

The Wachmannschaften des SS- und Polizeiführers im Distrikt Lublin units were a
special case among all the other collaborators working for the Germans in occupied
Poland. They were the only ones from extremely varied ethnic backgrounds, since
the majority of them had been recruited among prisoners of war from the multi-
ethnic Red Army. This contributed greatly to weakening the group’s internal cohe-
sion, since its members were ethnically diverse and suspicious of one another, fear-
ing reciprocal denunciations due to tensions and animosity. The «Trawniki» were
therefore a largely heterogeneous group who fervently obeyed repressive orders
regarding the local population, and attempted to compensate for their own precari-
ous positions within the unit and privileged status as German collaborators, with
repressive behaviour that often verged on sadism.

3. Resistance
With the German attack and the Russian invasion in September 1939, the Polish
state as a territorial entity was once again erased from the map. Even though the
Polish army disintegrated within a few weeks, the Polish state institutions and a
large part of the armed forces managed to leave Poland. At the end of the month,
Władysław Raczkiewicz, the speaker of the Senate, succeeded the last Polish peace-
time president, Ignacy Mościcki, and formed a Polish government-in-exile (Rząd
Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej na Uchodźstwie) in Paris, which was forced to move to Lon-
don in June 1940, during the German invasion of France. Not only did it represent
the now-non-existent country in international relations, but it also functioned as
the head of the largest Polish resistance movement, the Polish Underground State
(Polskie Państwo Podziemne), whose main goal was to restore Poland’s independence.
With its country under foreign rule, the deciding factor was to what extent the gov-
ernment-in-exile would be able to build up armed forces from outside, while com-
manding the nascent resistance movement inside Poland, in order to play a major
role in the struggle for its liberation.43
Remarkably enough, Polish efforts to preserve state institutions during the Sec-
ond World War were not limited to activity abroad. Although at first sight it might
have seemed like an impossible undertaking, a well-functioning and highly diversi-
fied network of clandestine state bodies – political, military, educational and provi-
sional – was indeed established inside German-occupied Poland. The Polish Under-
ground State was able to organise military intelligence and armed resistance against
the German (and, in due course, Russian) occupiers – obviously the most pressing
task for a government deprived of territorial sovereignty. It also educated urban
youth in underground schools and universities, thus fostering a new Polish elite that
would eventually compensate for the pre-war intelligentsia (who had mostly been

43 E. McGilvray, A Military Government in Exile: the

Polish Government-in-Exile, 1939–1945, West Mid-
lands 2010, 38–55.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 242 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

murdered by Nazi and Stalinist death squads) by forming the nucleus of a future
independent Polish state. At the peak of its existence, the Polish Underground State
– a body unique in occupied Europe – served the exiled government in London and
possessed an army, a legal system to judge traitors, an educational system to teach
young people, and a council to aid persecuted Jews.44
Whereas, initially, the Allies recognised the Polish government-in-exile unani-
mously, the German attack on Russia and the Soviet Union’s subsequent shift to an
anti-Nazi phalanx complicated the picture. After the German authorities published
pictures of mass graves they had discovered on former Soviet-occupied soil – traces
of the massacres of Polish officers in April and May 1940 mentioned above – and
when the Poles then failed to believe the Russian hoax of an alleged Nazi crime,
Joseph Stalin severed relations with their proxy government in London. Once the
Red Army had driven the German troops out of Poland, a Soviet regime was estab-
lished. Although partisan warfare against this new occupation lasted until the late
1940s, the fate of the Polish Underground State was already sealed.45 The govern-
ment-in-exile in London survived until the downfall of the Soviet bloc, but only
played a symbolic role. In 1990, its last president, Ryszard Kaczorowski, handed the
symbols of the Polish Republic (the presidential banner, state seals and sashes, as
well as the original text of the 1935 Constitution) to the first President of free Poland,
Lech Wałęsa. Maybe even more symbolically, in a bitter twist of historical irony, Kac-
zorowski died twenty years later in a plane crash in the Katyn forest, on his way to a
ceremony to commemorate the victims of 1940.
Jan E. Zamojski described the two embodiments of Polish national resistance to
the Nazi and Soviet occupation – the Underground State and the government-in-ex-
ile – as «two reflexes that history had imprinted on the national conscience of gener-
ations of Poles prior to the war. […] One of these reflexes may be called the ‹conspir-
atorial-insurrectionary mode›, and the other one the ‹exile mode› or ‹emigration
mode›. The first of these urged the people, once their country had been occupied, to
organise themselves secretly to prepare successive insurrections. The second reflex
was the consequence of the disasters that had been caused by the first.»46 While he
thus singles out two arguably «national» features of Polish resistance throughout
history and in the context of the Second World War, it is still worth examining the
relationship between its incarnation (the Underground State) and other pockets of

44 G. Górski, The Polish Underground State, 1939– L. Kowalski, Korpus Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego a
1945, Lublin 2012; H. Kochanski, The Eagle Un- Żołnierze Wyklęci. Walka z podziemiem antykomu-
bowed: Poland and the Poles in the Second World nistycznym w latach 1944–1956, Poznań 2016.
War, Cambridge, MA 2012, 117–119. 46 J. E. Zamojski, «The Social History of Polish Exile,
45 A. Ajnenkiel (ed.), Wojna domowa czy nowa okupac- 1939–1945: The Exile State and the Clandestine
ja? Polska po roku 1944 / Civil War or New Occupa- State. Society, Problems and Reflections», in:
tion? Poland after 1944, Warsaw 2001, 213–436; M. Conway / J. Gotovitch (eds.), Europe in Exile: Eu-
A. Skrzypek, Mechanizmy uzależnienia. Stosunki ropean Exile Communities in Britain 1940–45, New
polsko–radzieckie 1944–1957, Pułtusk 2002, 13–112; York, Oxford 2001, 183–211.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland 243

resistance such as – from an ethnic angle – Jews and Ukrainians, and – from a polit-
ical angle – the extreme left- and right-wing parties in Poland.
Relations between the Underground State and the Polish Jews were ambivalent,
however. Attitudes ranged from brotherhood in arms, and action to assist Jews and
spread information on the ongoing Holocaust to the Allies, through indifference, to
blatant hostility and mutual acts of violence.47 In 1939–1941, despite all the evidence
(such as the ongoing isolation of the Polish Jews, and the catastrophic living condi-
tions inside newly established ghettos in German-occupied Poland), the Polish un-
derground press reported that Poles were suffering the most under the new regime.
The alleged widespread Jewish collaboration with the Soviets in Eastern Poland – an
impression enhanced by the relative over-representation of Jews in the Soviet appa-
ratus, but contradicted by the fact that Jews endured as much Soviet persecution as
any other ethnic group – turned public opinion against the Jewish minority in both
occupation zones.
The situation changed when mass murder began. In 1942, the Underground
State realised the extent of the genocidal Nazi programme against the Jews in occu-
pied Poland. The first detailed information on the Holocaust was collected by the
Home Army Operational Command’s Office of Information and Propaganda, and
passed on to the outside world – which, tragically, would not listen – by the courier
Jan Karski.48 A special Council to Aid Jews (Rada Pomocy Żydom or Żegota) organised
escapes from ghettos and camps, and provided for Jews who lived in hiding. It is
estimated that the organisation saved half of the Jews who survived the Holocaust
on Polish territory. Thousands (exact figure unascertainable) of children were smug-
gled out of the Warsaw Ghetto, including 2500 who were saved by nurse Irina Send-
ler, head of the Żegota children’s section. Polish Catholics such as Karski, Sendler
and Władysław Bartoszewski – a young intellectual who was briefly imprisoned in
Auschwitz in 1940, before it became a death camp – had a crucial influence
within Żegota.49 They had grown up in the Second Polish Republic, and represented
parts of pre-war society who favoured Jewish integration, rather than emigration.
This spirit was also reflected in the clandestine «Information Bulletin» (Biuletyn In-
formacyjny) and the fact that, while the Home Army had no Ukrainian or Belarusian

47 A. Puławski, W obliczu Zagłady. Rząd RP na Ucho- Warszawie 1942–1945, Warsaw 1982; A. K. Kunert
dźstwie, Delegatura Rządu na Kraj, ZWZ-AK wobec (ed.), «Żegota». Rada Pomocy Żydom 1942–1945.
deportacji Żydów do obozów zagłady (1941–1942), Wybór dokumentów, Warsaw 2002, 189–217. After
Lublin 2009; recent handling of this topic in the the war, Karski became a US citizen and professor
West often overemphasises the latter aspect and at Georgetown University, while Sendler and Bar-
eschews contextualisation, see F. Golczewski, «Die toszewski were both imprisoned by the commu-
Heimatarmee und die Juden», in: B. Chiari (ed.), nist government, and later engaged in the Solidar-
Die polnische Heimatarmee. Geschichte und Mythos ity movement. After the regime change in 1989,
der Armia Krajowa seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg, Mu- Bartoszewski was twice appointed minister of for-
nich 2003, 635–676. eign affairs and, right up until his death, remained
48 S. M. Jankowski (ed.), Karski, Poznań 2009. a plenipotentiary for international affairs, focusing
49 T. Prekerowa, Konspiracyjna Rada Pomocy Żydom w on relations with Israel and Germany.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 244 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

(let alone German) soldiers, it numbered many Jews in its ranks. In the Warsaw
Uprising of autumn 1944, Poles and Jews fought side-by-side against the Germans.
However, being a mirror of inter-war Poland, some branches of the Underground
State loathed this inter-ethnic cooperation. The pages of the underground journal
«Polish News» (Wiadomości Polskie) regularly carried anti-Semitic statements. The
independent Jewish Combat Organisation (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa) was eyed
with suspicion, especially due to its rather pro-Soviet stance. Regularly forced to sur-
vive in the woods, on meagre rations and without the support of the local population,
armed Jewish gangs often crossed the line into organised banditry, and clashes be-
tween Jewish and Polish national partisan units led to casualties on both sides.50
Concerned for their own welfare, non-organised groups of Jewish survivors pre-
ferred to join the Soviet partisans rather than Polish national units.51
On the whole, the communist resistance movement in Poland was never strong
enough to exist on its own, and always depended on support from Moscow. In the
strange interregnum of 1939–1941, when Eastern Poland was part of the Russian
Empire, communist underground units in Western Poland would rather side against
Polish «kulaks» than the Germans, while paving the way for the anticipated Soviet
takeover. In 1941, the Sikorski–Maisky Agreement, which marked the resumption of
diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Poland, opened the door for co-
operation between the Polish national resistance and Soviet units operating in Ger-
man-occupied Poland. However, owing to their diametrically opposed political agen-
das, this only served as a lowest common denominator. In the field, both sides could
never agree on when to launch a large-scale uprising: Moscow tried to incite the
Polish government to action, calculating that the expected Polish losses would favour
the country’s Sovietisation after the war, which was exactly why the Polish resistance
leaders were hesitating. After Poland and the Soviet Union fell out, the Warsaw Up-
rising in late 1944 was the Home Army’s desperate attempt to forestall Sovietisation
and liberate the country by itself. In a Moscow show trial, 16 Polish Underground
leaders were sentenced to death.52 In any case, cooperation on a local level had been
out of question from the very beginning. As a rule, communist partisan units were
made up of infiltrators and, without local support, they took what they needed by
force. Armed clashes between national and communist partisan units were fairly
common.53

50 N. Tec, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, New York 52 E. Duraczyński, Generał Iwanow zaprasza. Przy-
1993. wódcy podziemnego państwa polskiego przed sądem
51 Unless stated otherwise, the preceding passages moskiewskim, Warsaw 1989; E. Wawrzyniak, Trybu-
on relations between the Underground State and nał przemocy: szesnastu z Łubianki, Warsaw 1998.
the Jews refer to A. Puławski, «Die Informations- 53 Unless stated otherwise, the preceding passages
politik des polnischen Untergrundstaates und der on relations between the Underground State and
Holocaust», in: J. Böhler / S. Lehnstaedt (eds.), Ge- the communist resistance movement within Po-
walt und Alltag im besetzten Polen, 1939–1945, Osna- land refer to P. Gontarczyk, «Im Dienste Stalins?
brück 2012, 365–389. Der kommunistische Untergrund in Polen», in:
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland 245

While Jewish and communist partisan movements fought one another more or
less casually whenever they met, encounters between Polish and Ukrainian resist-
ance fighters evolved into a virtual civil war. After the end of the First World War,
Ukrainian armed units began committing terrorist acts against the Polish state,
which constantly diminished the rights of its largest minority.54 The Organisation
of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiya Ukrayins’kykh Natsionalistiv, OUN) was
founded in 1929, and during the war, its two rivalling factions struggled against each
other with a vengeance, while continuing to collaborate with the Germans and fight
the Soviets in Eastern Poland. In 1943, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrayins’ka
povstans’ka armiya, UPA) emerged from the brawl, and since the balance of power
had shifted, it mostly turned against the Germans and Poles living in areas the UPA
regarded as Ukrainian.55 In 1943–1944, the UPA’s «anti-Polish action» led to more
than 100.000 Polish civilian fatalities, with Ukrainians and other ethnicities also
suffering heavy losses during the ensuing struggles.56

4. Conclusion
As this unavoidably brief analysis shows, dichotomous models are insufficient to
categorise the various resistance movements and forms of collaboration in occupied
Poland from 1939–1945. The country was already divided along ethnic lines before
the war, especially between Poles, Germans, Jews and Ukrainians. Onto this cobweb,
the German and Soviet occupation of 1939–1941 superimposed the rule of two total-
itarian regimes, thus putting paid to Poland’s independence, threatening the lives of
its population, and raising the stakes in the politico-ethnic struggle. This conver-
gence of ethnic conflicts and totalitarian rule opened up a labyrinth of possible coa-
litions and fronts. While the latter were mostly defined by ethnic and political en-
mity, the first were often purely pragmatic, and – with the notable exception of the
Polish Underground’s assistance to persecuted Jews – moral considerations rarely
came into play. On the fiercest embattled territory in Europe after the Soviet Union,
neither ethnic nor political boundaries proved stable. Moreover, they were in con-
stant flux, influenced by the international situation, the fortunes of war, and policies
of occupation, persecution and mass murder. Inter-ethnic, politically pragmatic,

Böhler / Lehnstädt, Gewalt, 419–447; P. Gontarczyk, 56 G. Motyka, Od rzezi wołyńskiej do akcji «Wisła».
Polska Partia Robotnicza. Droga do władzy 1941– Konflikt polsko–ukraiński 1943–1947, Kraków 2001,
1944, Warsaw 2003, 330–360; N. Iwanow, Komu- 88–377; L. Kuklińska / C. Partacz, Zbrodnie nacjon-
nizm po polsku. Historia komunizacji Polski widzia- alistów ukraińskich na Polakach w latach 1939–1945.
na z Kremla, Kraków 2017, 141–192, 246–303. Ludobójstwo niepotępione, Warsaw 2015; G. Moty-
54 S. Troebst, «Nationalismus und Gewalt im Ost- ka / D. Libionka (eds.), Antypolska akcja OUN–UPA
europa der Zwischenkriegszeit: Terroristische Sep- 1943–1944. Fakty i interpretacje, Warsaw 2002;
aratismen im Vergleich», in: Berliner Jahrbuch für from a Ukrainian viewpoint: Il’iushin, Ukraïns’ka
osteuropäische Geschichte 3 (1996) 1, 273–314. povstans’ka armiia, 225–320; V. V’iatrovich, Druha
55 A. Gogun, «Die sowjetischen Partisanen und die pol’s’ko-ykraïns’ka viina. 1942–1947, Kyiv 2012.
Nationalitätenkonflikte in der Ukraine 1941–
1944», in: Böhler / Lehnstädt, Gewalt, 349–364.
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2
 246 Jochen Böhler / Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

trans-national cooperation was generally the rule inside this vortex, while friction
was rife in every interest group in Nazi- and Soviet-occupied Poland. The reason
underlying this complex constellation was plain and simple: a maximum of flexibil-
ity was required to provide minimal chances of survival in the short term, followed
by national independence and ethnic self-determination in the long run.
As one may have gathered, monochrome reflections are inadequate to express
the maze hidden beneath the surface of the occupation, and a much subtler grey-
scale palette is required. Recent Polish remembrance policy – exemplified by the
debates on whether Jews were murdered or rescued by their neighbours – have
shown that categories of guilt, victimhood and heroism cannot be attributed exclu-
sively to certain ethnic or political groups within the occupied society, but rather to
the actions of individuals, families or town communities.57 For further research into
the history of occupied Poland in 1939–1945, this would imply disposing of long-cher-
ished stereotypes in order to take a fresh look at the multi-faceted collections of ar-
chival sources. One must see personal motives and scope of action as behavioural
parameters in a fight for survival under two foreign totalitarian regimes. Most cer-
tainly, this calls for additional comparative regional and local studies.

57 See annot. 21 and, in contrast, J. A. Młynarc- vival: The Rescue of the Jews by the Poles and the
zyk / S. Piątkowski, The Price of Sacrifice. Crimes Tragic Consequences for the Ulma Family from
against Poles for Aiding Jews in the Region of Cie- Markowa, Warsaw, Kraków 2009.
pielów, Kraków 2008; M. Szpytma, The Risk of Sur-

ABSTRACT Collaboration and Resistance in Wartime Poland (1939–1945) –

A Case for Differentiated Occupation Studies
This article aims to diffenenciate the often simplistic depiction of war and occupa-
tion in Europe between 1939 and 1945 as a fight of good against evil. Such a descrip-
tion can be found not only in popular culture, but also, though less blatantly, in his-
torical literature. Without questioning the overall responsibility of the Axis powers
for the horrendous crimes committed during the war, this article argues for a more
nuanced approach that takes into account the often complex nature of interaction
between the occupiers and the occupied. Instead of invoking moral judgment, the
authors aim to prioritize the historical analysis of the reality of Poland’s occupation
by the Nazis, recognizing that the parties involved had their own agency and often
conflicting agendas. The authors apply this approach to two major phenomena: col-
laboration with, and resistance against the occupying forces. It thereby becomes
clear that violence was exchanged not only between the occupants and the occu-
pied, but also between different political and ethnic groups of the Polish society.

Jochen Böhler Jacek Andrzej Młynarczyk

Imre Kertész Kolleg Uniwersytet Mikołaja Kopernika
Leutragraben 1 Instytut Historii i Archiwistyki
D–07743 Jena ul. Władysława Bojarskiego 1
[email protected] PL–87100 Torun
[email protected]
JMEH 16 / 2018 / 2