Szmalcownik

Polish underground Biuletyn Informacyjny (Information Bulletin), 2 September 1943, announcing death sentences carried out on collaborators, including a szmalcownik named Jan Grabiec
Announcement by the governor of the Warsaw District, Ludwig Fischer, of 13 May 1943, encouraging the inhabitants of Warsaw to hand over communist agents and Jews to the German authorities
Directorate of Underground Resistance poster, September 1943, announcing death sentences carried out on collaborators, including Bogusław Jan Pilnik, sentenced for 'blackmailing, and delivering to German authorities, hiding Polish citizens of Jewish ethnicity"
Żegota communiqué published in September 1943 warning that denunciation of Jews to the Nazis was a capital offence

Szmalcownik (Polish pronunciation: [ʂmalˈtsɔvɲik]); in English, also sometimes spelled shmaltsovnik[1]) is a pejorative Polish slang expression that originated during the Holocaust in Poland in World War II and refers to a person who blackmailed Jews who were in hiding, or who blackmailed Poles who aided Jews, during the German occupation. By stripping Jews of their financial resources, blackmailers added substantially to the danger that Jews and their rescuers faced and increased their chances of being caught and killed.

In the capital of Poland, Warsaw, some 3,000–4,000 people acted as blackmailers and informants.[2] In the summer of 1942, Żegota, a Polish underground organization dedicated to aiding the Jews, requested that the Polish Underground State intensify its efforts to stop the "blackmailer plague".[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.[4] The number and effect of these executions is disputed. A number of szmalcowniks were also tried in Poland after the war.[5]

The phenomenon of blackmailing Jews during the Holocaust was not unique to Poland, and occurred throughout occupied Europe.[6]

  1. ^ Dyner, Anna Maria (2020). "World War II in Russia's Foreign Policy". PISM Bulletin.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Paulsson2002-5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Dariusz Libionka: ZWZ-AK i Delegatura Rządu RP wobec eksterminacji Żydów polskich [in:] Andrzej Żbikowski (ed.) Polacy i Żydzi pod okupacją niemiecką 1939–1945. Studia i materiały. Warszawa: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2006, p. 123. ISBN 83-60464-01-4.
  5. ^ Jan Grabowski Szantażowanie Żydów: casus Warszawy 1939–1945 Przegląd Historyczny 99/4, pages 588–590
  6. ^ Jan Grabowski: „Ja tego Żyda znam!” Szantażowanie Żydów w Warszawie 1939–1943. Warszawa: Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów. Wydawnictwo IFiS PAN, 2004, p. 12. ISBN 83-7388-058-5.