Szmalcownik

[3] In the summer of 1943, the Home Army began carrying out death sentences for szmalcowniks in occupied Poland, executing more than a dozen by the end of the war.

[6] The term comes from the German word Schmalz (Polish phonetic spelling: szmalc, literally meaning "lard")[7] and indicated the blackmailer's financial motive, i.e. the bribe to be paid by the victim.

About three-quarters were ethnic Poles, but members of the German, Ukrainian and Lithuanian minorities – and in some cases even Jews – were also engaged in blackmailing.

[2] From 1941 onwards, Jews who were found without a valid pass outside ghettos and camps were subject to the death penalty, as were any individuals aiding them.

[18][19][20] Many hiding Jews were easy to recognize by distinctive physical features, accents and vocabulary, culinary preferences, lack of knowledge about Polish Christian customs, and even excessive purchase of food supplies.

[22][23] The Polish Underground State considered collaboration a treasonous act punishable by death,[24][25] and attempted to counteract the activities of szmalcowniks and informers from the beginning of the German occupation.

[26] One way in which it tried to hinder such activities was by publishing public condemnations in posters, leaflets and the underground press,[27][28][29] though these rarely addressed crimes against Jews specifically.

[26] The communist Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego (Polish Committee of National Liberation) issued a similar decree more than a year later, on 31 August 1944.

[35] According to Samuel Kassow, who analysed the Emanuel Ringelblum Archives, "even in the relatively simple matter of suppressing the blackmailers and informants who plagued Jews on the Aryan side, the underground state could not be bothered.

[26] Michael Marrus notes, however, that some 150 executions of informers that took place by April 1943, although not in response to blackmailing, had a positive effect on the phenomenon.

[38][30] Marrus argues that while the executions did not eliminate the problem of blackmailers, they "reduced it so much" that it was no longer an issue of "primary importance" to Żegota.