- Szmalcownik
Szmalcownik (IPA2|ʂmal 'ʦɔv ɲik) is a
pejorative Polishslang word used duringWorld War II that denoted a personblackmail ing hidingJews or blackmailingPoles who protected Jews during the Nazi occupationcite book |last= Jan |first=Grabowski |title= "Ja tego żyda znam!" : szantażowanie żydów w Warszawie, 1939-1943 / "I know this Jew!": Blackmailing of the Jews in Warsaw 1939-1945 |url= http://www.holocaustresearch.pl/publikacje(en).htm |year= 2004 |publisher=Wydawn. IFiS PAN : Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów |location=Warsaw , Poland |language=Polish |isbn=8373880585 |oclc=60174481 ] . ThePolish Secret State considered "szmalcownictwo" an act of collaboration with the German occupiers.Armia Krajowa punished it with the death sentence as a criminal act oftreason .Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego by his decree ofAugust 31 1944 also condemned this act as collaboration withNazi Germany . This decree is still a valid law in Poland and person who during the war committed an act of "szmalcownictwo" faceslife imprisonment . After the war there were very few trials as most witnesses had already been dead or left the country.Fact|date=March 2008 It is assumed that the majority of szmalcowniks have peacefully lived until old age.Fact|date=March 2008Blackmailers (szmalcowniks) were plentiful in Warsaw, sometimes gangs of them.
Gunnar S. Paulsson estimates that their total numbers, however, were relatively small, "1 or 2 percent" of all Warsaw Poles (p. 113). The damage that these criminals did, however, was substantial. Most were interested in money. By stripping Jews of assets needed for food and bribes, harassing rescuers, raising the overall level of insecurity, and forcing hidden Jews to seek out safer accommodations, blackmailers added significantly to the danger Jews faced and increased their chances of getting caught and killed. Jews who lived on the Aryan side were more afraid of szmalcowniks than the Germans because Polish blackmailers were experts in distinguishing Jewish facial features. At the beginning of German oppression, szmalcowniks were satisfied with a few hundred zlotys extortion but after the death penalty for hiding Jews was introduced the sums rose to several hundred thousands zlotys.Paradoxically, Germans sometimes treated szmalcowniks as criminals and exerted punishments on them. The reason was that szmalcowniks bribed also German officials and policemen - after the denunciation of a rich Jew, szmalcowniks and corrupted Germans shared the robbed money.
The blackmailers were both of Polish and Jewish ethnicity.
References
ee also
*
Collaboration during World War II Further reading
* Gunnar S. Paulsson. "Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw, 1940-1945". New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-300-09546-3, [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=252691081495762 Review]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
