There is a need for a reminder, that in accordance with Paragraph 3 of the decree of 15 October 1941, on the Limitation of Residence in General Government (page 595 of the GG Register) Jews leaving the Jewish Quarter without permission will incur the death penalty.

[1] The Polish government-in-exile informed the world of the extermination of the Jews on June 9, 1942, following a report from the Jewish Labour Bund leadership smuggled out of the occupied Poland by Home Army couriers.

Supported by the Government Delegation for Poland, the most notable effort dedicated to helping Jews was spearheaded by the Żegota Council, based in Warsaw, with branches in Kraków, Wilno, and Lwów.

[15] The response of the Polish majority to the Jewish Holocaust covered an extremely wide spectrum, often ranging from acts of altruism at the risk of endangering their own and their families lives, through compassion, to passivity, indifference, blackmail, and denunciation[citation needed].

[21] Polish rescuers faced threats from unsympathetic neighbours, Polish-German Volksdeutsche,[22] ethnic Ukrainian pro-Nazis,[23] blackmailers called szmalcowniks, the Blue Police, and Jewish collaborators,[21] Żagiew and Group 13.

[25] Deadly pogroms were committed in over 30 locations across formerly Soviet-occupied parts of Poland,[26] including in Brześć, Tarnopol, Białystok, Łuck, Lwów, Stanisławów, and in Wilno where the Jews were murdered along with the Poles in the Ponary massacre at a ratio of 3-to-1.

According to Gunnar S. Paulsson, the number of rescuers that meet Yad Vashem's criteria is perhaps 100,000 and there may have been two or three times as many who offered minor help; the majority "were passively protective.

Israel Gutman has written that the majority of Jews who were sheltered by Poles paid for their own up-keep,[58] but thousands of Polish protectors perished along with the people they were hiding.

[61] Poles helping Jews faced unparalleled dangers not only from the German occupiers but also from their own ethnically diverse countrymen including Polish-German Volksdeutsche,[22] and Polish Ukrainians,[62] many of whom were anti-Semitic and morally disoriented by the war.

[65] The vast majority of these individuals joined the criminal underworld after the German occupation and were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people, both Jews and the Poles who were trying to save them.

[66][67][68] According to one reviewer of Paulsson, with regard to the extortionists, "a single hooligan or blackmailer could wreak severe damage on Jews in hiding, but it took the silent passivity of a whole crowd to maintain their cover.

[44] Michael C. Steinlauf writes that not only the fear of the death penalty was an obstacle limiting Polish aid to Jews, but also antisemitism, which made many individuals uncertain of their neighbors' reaction to their attempts at rescue.

[70][71][72][73] Meanwhile, Alina Cala in her study of Jews in Polish folk culture argued also for the persistence of traditional religious antisemitism and anti-Jewish propaganda before and during the war both leading to indifference.

[44][79] Former Director of the Department of the Righteous at Yad Vashem, Mordecai Paldiel, wrote that the widespread revulsion among the Polish people at the murders being committed by the Nazis was sometimes accompanied by an alleged feeling of relief at the disappearance of Jews.

[81] Paulsson and Pawlikowski wrote that wartime attitudes among some of the populace were not a major factor impeding the survival of sheltered Jews, or the work of the Żegota organization.

[82] The presenting of selective evidence in support of preconceived notions have led some popular press to draw overly simplistic and often misleading conclusions regarding the role played by Poles at the time of the Holocaust.

Similarly, in the territories incorporated directly into the German Reich, the death penalty for helping Jews was not introduced, but it was imposed locally during the liquidation of the ghettos.

[98] Postwar research has confirmed that communal protection occurred in Głuchów near Łańcut with everyone engaged,[99] as well as in the villages of Główne, Ozorków, Borkowo near Sierpc, Dąbrowica near Ulanów, in Głupianka near Otwock,[100] and Teresin near Chełm.

"[104] Another farm couple, Alfreda and Bolesław Pietraszek, provided shelter for Jewish families consisting of 18 people in Ceranów near Sokołów Podlaski, and their neighbors brought food to those being rescued.

[105] Two decades after the end of the war, a Jewish partisan named Gustaw Alef-Bolkowiak identified the following villages in the Parczew-Ostrów Lubelski area where "almost the entire population" assisted Jews: Rudka, Jedlanka, Makoszka, Tyśmienica, and Bójki.

[108] Different families took turns hiding a Jewish girl at various homes in Wola Przybysławska near Lublin,[109] and around Jabłoń near Parczew many Polish Jews successfully sought refuge.

Olga Lilien, recalling her wartime experience in the 2000 book To Save a Life: Stories of Holocaust Rescue, was sheltered by a Polish family in a village near Tarnobrzeg, where she survived the war despite the posting of a 200 deutsche mark reward by the Nazi occupiers for information on Jews in hiding.

[113] Chava Grinberg-Brown from Gmina Wiskitki recalled in a postwar interview that some farmers used the threat of violence against a fellow villager who intimated the desire to betray her safety.

[44] It is estimated that the number of Jews living in hiding on the Aryan side of the capital city in 1944 was at least 15,000 to 30,000 and relied on the network of 50,000–60,000 Poles who provided shelter, and about half as many assisting in other ways.

[136] The Roman Catholic Church in Poland provided many persecuted Jews with food and shelter during the war,[136] even though monasteries gave no immunity to Polish priests and monks against the death penalty.

[44][146] After the war ended, some convents were unwilling to return Jewish children to postwar institutions that asked for them, and at times refused to disclose the adoptive parents' identities, forcing government agencies and courts to intervene.

Karski also presented his report to the news media, bishops of various denominations (including Cardinal Samuel Stritch), members of the Hollywood film industry, and artists, but without success.

[176] However, Prekerowa notes that the death sentences by non-military courts only began to be issued in September 1943, which meant that blackmailers were able to operate for some time already since the first Nazi anti-Jewish measures of 1940.

[177] Overall, it took the Polish underground until late 1942 to legislate and organize non-military courts which were authorized to pass death sentences for civilian crimes, such as non-treasonous collaboration, extortion and blackmail.

He notes that since Nazi informers often denounced members of the underground as well as Jews in hiding, the charge of collaboration was a general one and sentences passed were for cumulative crimes.