A decision to establish the BBC Polish Section was made on 3 September 1939, after Great Britain declared war on Germany.
Programmes consisted of news, press reviews, commentaries, reports and interviews, and were also used for transmitting coded messages and orders to the Polish Underground using prearranged selection of songs and code phrases.
Like other broadcasts from behind the Iron Curtain, BBC Polish-language programmes were jammed and, in the 1950s, listeners on occasion would be persecuted as enemies of the people.
Jamming stopped in the 1970s but was reintroduced in 1981 as the authorities clamped down on political freedom (see martial law in Poland).
During the post-war period, while still concentrating on impartial and uncensored news, programming was expanded to culture, technology, social matters, British life and daily English language lessons.