Collaborators, Informers and Agents in Occupied Krakow: A Contribution to Further Research

Ac cording to estimates made after the war, approximately 800–1000 people collaborated with the Krakow Gestapo during World War II. The historian Leszek Gondek suggests that at the end of the occupation the Gestapo could call on the services of 2000 informants. They came from various social and professional backgrounds, and their contacts with the German authorities were both regular as well as spontaneous, depending above all else on the dynamics of the occupation and the conditions at any given time. Their ranks were mostly made up of Poles and Volksdeutsche, as well as a small group of Ukrainians and Jews – of which there were around 20.1 The subject of the present analysis is not entirely unknown to researchers; however, the source literature is rather limited. Many papers have been published on the subject of collaboration in occupied Poland,2 as well as on the history of Krakow during World War II as a whole.3 On the other hand, no separate study has focused on individual cases of collaboration with the invaders or the phenomenon of delators (denouncers)4 in the

Ac cording to estimates made after the war, approximately 800-1000 people collaborated with the Krakow Gestapo during World War II. The historian Leszek Gondek suggests that at the end of the occupation the Gestapo could call on the services of 2000 informants. They came from various social and professional backgrounds, and their contacts with the German authorities were both regular as well as spontaneous, depending above all else on the dynamics of the occupation and the conditions at any given time. Their ranks were mostly made up of Poles and Volksdeutsche, as well as a small group of Ukrainians and Jews -of which there were around 20. 1 The subject of the present analysis is not entirely unknown to researchers; however, the source literature is rather limited. Many papers have been published on the subject of collaboration in occupied Poland, 2 as well as on the history of Krakow during World War II as a whole. 3 On the other hand, no separate study has focused on individual cases of collaboration with the invaders or the phenomenon of delators (denouncers) 4 in the The authorities of the General Government established their headquarters in Krakow, 23 as did the security services, the public order, district, 24 regional and city authorities, 25 and many diff erent units of the German police, including its political (Gestapo), security (Sipo), and criminal (Kripo) branches as well as the 'Order' police (Orpo) and Protection police (Schupo). 26 The Germans occupied the headquarters of the city's most important offi ces as well as those of its social and economic institutions, including the General Directorate for Eastern Railways, the German Postal Service in the East, and the Central Welfare Council. Jan Dąbrowski recalled: Krakow was swarming with Germans, both in uniform and civilian clothes, yelling and shouting, and acting more and more brutally towards the Polish citizens […]. Impoverished refugees who returned to the city after many months of wandering often found their homes had been robbed by the Germans. 27 National policies constituted an important part of Nazi occupation policy in Poland during World War II. The German authorities made every eff ort to deepen the divide between ethnic groups and antagonize the diff erent communities that made up Polish society at the time. Krakow became one of the most important links in the chain of the Nazi German system of organized oppression. Two mutually hostile subsystems came to life inside this system: that of the invaders, and that of the citizens of the occupied territory. Over the years, relations between those contrasting worlds evolved, depending on various factors -but they remained hostile nonetheless; they were also strongly dependent on processes taking place inside those subsystems. 28 The relationship between the local population and the Nazi authorities, especially in terms of collaboration in the fi rst months of the war, was shaped by the tradition and the history of the city (the outcome of relations between the Kingdom of Poland and Galicia, and the attitudes of Krakow's 'intelligentsia'), 29 which had been brutally and viciously dismantled by the occupiers. The German occupation changed, rather radically, the city's ancient social fabric, violating many long-established values and 23 From April 1941, the GG government was headed by the state secretary who oversaw 12 main departments: internal aff airs (in German: Hauptabteilung Innere Verwaltung), the treasury (Hauptabteilung  25 The regional governors of Krakow during the occupation were as follows: Ernst Zörner (September 1939to February 1940), Carl Schmidt (February 1940to March 1941), Rudolf Pavlu (April 1941to April 1943 and Josef Kramer (April 1943to January 1945. 28 CHROBACZYŃSKI, Kraków 1939-1945 29 BIENIARZÓWNA -MAŁECKI, Dzieje Krakowa,vol. 3. standards. It also changed the mentality of society, disrupting citizens' sense of stability and security. Many underground newspapers in circulation in occupied Krakow published articles focusing on the need for eff ective resistance against the Nazis while at the same time promoting what it deemed appropriate moral stances among citizens. The main features of the "civil struggle" against the Germans included the following: 1. Maintaining the fi ghting spirit and moral stances worthy of the Polish Nation; 2. Counteracting the destruction of humanity resulting from Nazi doctrine; 3. Preventing the plunder and theft of the nation's cultural and material assets; 4. Spreading word abroad that the fi ght continues in Poland; 5. Forcing the invaders to maintain a large military presence inside Polish borders so as to weaken their forces elsewhere; 6. Refusing under any circumstances to weaken the will resist. 30 However, the terror of the occupation led citizens in Krakow to react in diff erent, often extreme ways, from passive and active resistance through to submission, and even to collaboration with the Nazi authorities. 31 These actions destabilized the fabric of society (through fear, uncertainty, the threat of arrest, imprisonment or execution). People feared for their own lives and the lives of their families, and mistrusted their neighbours -and the underground press fuelled this sense of terror and foreboding, warning readers about the presence of agents and informers, and publishing the names of individuals suspected of committing acts of high treason. Gossips, busybodies, newsmongers, denouncers and snitches were reviled and stigmatized. The last two named groups comprised both people who openly or anonymously denounced others to the Germans, and intelligence agents or persons who (occasionally or regularly) cooperated with them, thereby becoming instruments of terror at the hands of the invaders. 32 During the occupation collaborators working for the German authorities in Poland, and in particular for the Nazi security apparatus, fell into various categories. The Gestapo initially divided its agents into two groups based on formal criteria: Werk-Personen (W-Personen) and Vertrauens-Personen (V-Personen). In 1943, two more categories were introduced: Auskunfts-Personen (A-Personen) and Gewährs-Personen (G-Personen), whereas Orpo agents were called Zuträger-Personen (Z-Personen), as they ran their own informer networks. However, the broadest category is that used by the author of the present study, namely informers of security services in the occupied territory, which comprised the following groups: 1. V-Leute -most trusted agents, members of the NSDAP, 2. Agenten -agents who were not members of the NSDAP, 3. Zubringer -regular informers, such as doctors, members of the clergy etc., 30 CHROBACZYŃSKI,Postawy,zachowania,nastroje,100. 31 See: CHROBACZYŃSKI,Postawy,zachowania,nastroje,100. 32 The present author fi rst analysed this problem in her work entitled Wymuszona współpraca czy zdrada? This study deepens the analysis as a part of research under a grant of the National Center of Science (SONATINA 2). The author is currently working on a project entitled Zjawisko donosicielstwa w powiecie krakowskim w latach 1939-1945[Phenomenon of collaboration in the Krakow district, 1939-1945 (project no. 2018/28/C/ HS3/00108). 4. Helfershelfer (H-Leute) -occasional informers, and 5. Unzuverlässige (U-Leute) -criminals and corrupt individuals, occasionally used by the SD. 33 The main aim of this study is to describe the activities of the last three groups of informers and denouncers: occasional and regular collaborators of the Krakow Gestapo. It was they who usually provided the occupying authorities with vital information concerning members of communities with which they were in contact every day. They functioned in their social environments and gathered information concerning their neighbours, relatives, families and colleagues. Envy, jealousy, revenge, score-settling, fear of repression, economic competition and family quarrels were the most common factors motivating individuals to denounce their neighbours and begin collaborating with the German authorities and police. 34 In my research, I use terminology that was adopted during World War II, with a few exceptions. In this study, "agents" are synonymous with "informers" and "confi dants", i.e. persons regularly or occasionally in contact with the Gestapo. "Denouncers", on the other hand, are synonymous with "snitches", i.e. persons who reported to the Gestapo sporadically or had a one-off interaction with the authorities. The "services" of the latter grouping were employed as a weapon against a particular community, and their main motive was personal gain, to the detriment of other people, which often resulted from the fact that these individuals had no other means of subsistence for their families, or simply treated "snitching" as a mode of survival.

Agents and individual collaborators in occupied Krakow
Another incentive for contacting the security apparatus was the remuneration that informers could expect to receive -in cash or in kind (vodka, cigarettes, clothes, sugar etc.); they could also count on the authorities' help in overcoming "red tape" regarding their economic activities. Moreover, any information deemed useful by the authorities could be given in exchange for an individual's exemption from forced labour in the Third Reich.
There were also those who chose to barter their freedom for collaboration with the Germans. 35 Reportedly, a relatively large number of occasional agents were willing to do so. According to Borodziej, in Tomaszów province, for example, the military police was itself served by two to eight informers. 36 The number of German collaborators based in the Krakow region remains unknown; however, the archives of the Krakow district of the home army provide us with the names of more than 500 informers. 37 Kazimierz Albin, a member of the Krakow underground, recalled after the war: Krakow was unlike other cities. Many civilians, along with countless Germans, an exceptionally large garrison of soldiers and police, and a spider's web of agents and confi dants made any combat mission in the city almost impossible. 38 33 BIERNACKI, Okupant a polski ruch oporu, 71. For a classifi cation of diff erent types of agents, see: ARONSON, Reinhard Heydrich und die Frühgeschichte, 155.
34 For more on denunciations and reports made by the local population to the German authorities in occupied Poland, see: ENGELKING, Szanowny Panie gistapo. GONDEK, Polska karząca 1939-1945, 100. 35 See e.g.: Dziennik Polski, 1943, no. 613, p. 4 . Małopolska Agencja Prasowa, 1943 Regular agents of the security apparatus were individuals who maintained regular contact with the Nazi authorities and who decided to cooperate with them on a permanent basis. These confi dants were given new identities, apartments and jobs. Usually, they reported to their "guardians", i.e. German police offi cers who met them in public places or private homes. Borodziej claimed that the average monthly remuneration of such agents amounted to 100-200 marks, plus bonuses and additional compensation "in kind". Eff ective cooperation often resulted in, among other things, the informer's relatives being released from German prisons or concentration camps. An agent's principal task was to infi ltrate the Polish underground, even at the lowest levels. The security police recruited professional agents from among active members of the resistance. Agents were selected based on their past activities and their role in the underground.
Professional agents were the most valuable source of information for the security police. Their anonymity was particularly guarded, and details of their cooperation were kept in diff erent places for safety purposes. These agents declared their willingness to collaborate with the authorities in writing. The security police assigned them a coded number, and subsequently acquainted them with the area they were supposed to cover. Informers for the security apparatus often used the help of the Volksdeutsche, who recruited snitches and agents among Poles. 39 They reported on the prevailing moods of the local population, and often provoked individuals into expressing their views on the occupation and the authorities, and the data gathered in this way was registered by security police functionaries. 40 In addition to sounding out the attitudes of their fellow Poles occasional denouncers primarily informed the Germans (willingly) of Jews residing illegally in the city. 41 As Barbara Engelking rightly observed, agents became, in a way, cogs in the terror machine and an integral part of the system the Gestapo relied upon -especially by sending letters of denunciation that supported German authorities not for money, but out of sheer cynicism. 42 The unpaid "snoops" of the security services deliberately stoked up fears of repression among the local population, and reinforced the conviction that the occupier was omnipotent and omnipresent in their everyday lives. These snoops were, undoubtedly, as much of a threat to Polish people and the Polish underground as "professional" or "paid" German agents. Anonymous letters sent to the Gestapo provide insights into political, economic, social and "racial" (i.e. in accordance with the provisions of the Nuremberg Laws) lives of Krakow citizens. In addition to reports informing the authorities of failures to comply with German regulations, activities of the underground and crimes committed by Jews (e.g. smuggling or illegal presence outside the ghetto), delators also sent in anonymous tip-off s against personal enemies.

Informers and denouncers in occupied Krakow
During the war, offi cers of the Krakow Gestapo had at their disposal a large number of denouncers and several intelligence networks comprising 10-20 agents. At the end of the occupation, the Krakow Gestapo reportedly had approximately 2000 informers 39 BORODZIEJ,Terror i polityka,86. 40 RAMME,Służba Bezpieczeństwa SS,[194][195] 41 FITZPATRICK -GELLATELY, Accusatory Practices, 1.
42 ENGELKING, Szanowny panie gistapo, 17. on their books. 43 Kurt Heinemeyer, 44 a functionary of the Krakow Gestapo, testifi ed after the war that "in mid-1940 he was ordered to examine every detainee to assess their usefulness as potential informers". 45 His fi rst agent was a Pole, Karol Pfeiff er, who, during an operation against the Polish resistance at the beginning of the occupation, allegedly helped Heinemeyer gather intelligence on political organizations such as the Polish Socialist Party, the People's Party and the National Radical Camp. 46 Records show that the Kwast brothers, Gustaw and Maks, also regularly reported to the Nazis. 47 In 1939, they signed the Volkslist and volunteered for service as translators at the KdS Krakow. Because of their place of residence, they knew the local environment and customs, as well as their "way around" the area. 48 The 3rd and 4th departments of the KdS also oversaw an extensive network of agents, informers and residents. 49 Their activities were mainly directed against Polish underground organizations. The scope of the responsibilities of these people depended on the department to which German functionaries belonged. Before the informer networks were reorganized in 1942, 50 Gestapo collaborators' personal fi les were held in Referat [Department] IV-N, which was supposed to manage and supervise the work of the informers and assign them missions. In reality, the SD and the Gestapo ran partially separate networks. The SD managed to retain only a certain number of informers, whereas the Gestapo, thanks to fi nancial support from the Referat, was able to expand its intelligence group signifi cantly. 51 Heads of departments and subdivisions of the Krakow Gestapo had their own informers and agents: Adolf Spilker, Albert Schulz, Heinrich Hamann, Paul Emil Groner, 43 GONDEK, Polska karząca 1939-1945 47 Maks Kwast was born on 15 August 1909 in Łódź; he moved to Krakow before the outbreak of WWII. On 13 January 1939, he volunteered to work for the Gestapo. He was employed as a translator for the political police in the Jewish Department. His supervisor in his fi rst weeks was Oskar Brandt; later, he was assigned to a group managed by Becher, in which, according to Kwast, he worked as an auxiliary police offi cer until May 1941. In May 1941, Kurt Heinemeyer became his supervisor; Kwast claimed Heinemeyer had appointed him criminal secretary. However, Heinemeyer did not mention any such promotion in his testimony. It is more likely that Kwast continued to work as a translator for the Gestapo, and remained a salaried member of staff in that department, located on Pomorska street, until the end of the occupation. He was sentenced to death after the war and executed on 18 August 1948. AIPN  50 The overhaul was a result of organizational changes in the RSHA in 1942 and a renumbering of departments. It was also in response to large-scale operations launched by the security services against the Polish underground. See: STRZEMBOSZ, Akcje zbrojne podziemnej Warszawy, 115-116. In 1943, more than a thousand agents and informers of the German security services located in the GG were eliminated. See: GONDEK, W imieniu Rzeczypospolitej, 138.
Many occasional snitches who collaborated with the Nazi collaborators had a poor reputation for trustworthiness -they included a certain number of pathological liars, mythomaniacs and swindlers, and only a handful were reliable agents. The Gestapo were, in a way, resigned to relying on their own regular informers for help. As Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Gerhard Paul have concluded, "without an army of volunteer informers, the Gestapo would have been forced to operate blindly". 53 Those who do not agree with this theory claim that the Gestapo used reports from private parties; but, on the other hand, they argued that there existed an entire web of German institutions whose mission was to surveil society and facilitate the work of the Gestapo. German researchers also claim that approximately 70 % of trials held in courts were based on anonymous letters sent to the Gestapo. 54 In the case of the Krakow Gestapo it is impossible to draw such clear conclusions based on what remains of its archives. Of the approximately 2500 cases investigated by the district court in Krakow during the war only 264 case fi les have survived. Of these, the prosecutor initiated proceedings based on 5 anonymous letters and more than 30 reports submitted by denouncers. 55 In several cases, individuals making false accusations in such reports were themselves convicted.
The Krakow underground intercepted several hundred anonymous or signed letters written by inhabitants of Krakow and the surrounding areas and sent to the police or the occupying authorities containing information on political, racial, economic, social or fi nancial matters. The examples of denunciations that I was able to obtain and use as reference in the paper are insuffi cient to recreate the so-called "denouncer profi le" 56 or to approach the problem statistically, dividing that group according to their social/professional affi liation, education, sex, patriotic sentiments or lack thereof. It is, undoubtedly, a subject that should be treated and discussed separately. For the purposes of this paper, I shall present the dominant aspects of the denunciations I have managed to study, along with their characteristic features. They were usually handwritten; several were typewritten -the latter were longer and more detailed. Only in several cases is it justifi ed to suspect that the authors of those denunciations had -or did not have -elementary or higher education. Some conclusions might be drawn based on the vocabulary, grammatical or spelling correctness, overall coherency of the text, and the authors' ability to convey information. I am thinking particularly of denunciations written on postcards -some of them were logical, others chaotic. Subjects tackled by authors were either thematically related or completely devoid of sense. Some denunciations were written with a pen, others with a pencil. Some were 56 The analysis of that problem demands separate research. Due to the limited length of the paper and the fact that it is only loosely related to the main subject, I shall present only the most important conclusions from my research to date. very neat, others very sloppy. Some authors took care to retain the structure of a formal letter, dividing the text into the usual "introduction -main body -conclusion pattern", providing their contact details (!) and using terms of respect: "Yours sincerely", "Best wishes" etc. Understanding the intentions of other denouncers demanded, however, a lot of concentration, and in some cases, imagination. Sentences were short and incoherent. Most of them were written on postcards, with big, capital letters and large spacing between lines.
Denunciations were addressed both to the police authorities (Gestapo, Polish police, criminal police) and to the administration (e.g. the housing executive). One of the addressees of those letters was the aforementioned Hans Frank, the general governor. Documents were written mostly in German, less often in Polish, even though Polish citizens' knowledge of the former language was usually poor. It is hard to say, at this stage of my research, if the addressees' motivations -most of them social -were more prone to use "legality" or "patriotism" as an excuse for their actions. The latter category especially was absent in the documents I have studied; the most common reason was dislike towards the targeted person. Less frequently, the reason was economic or anti-Semitic. The subjects tackled in the denunciations, however, corresponded with the dynamically changing situation in the country. For instance, from 1942, the number of denunciations targeting Jews increased; even before that, prior to creation of the ghetto, the opportunistic public frowned upon Jewish families occupying houses in Polish and German residential quarters. New tenants were treated with mistrust and suspected of illegal activities or collaboration with the Nazis; they were seen as a threat to the status quo. In 1944, denunciations related to fi nance started appearing -authors informed on frauds and their illegal businesses. It should be noted, however, that the dramatic increase in the number of denunciations was purely social in nature and was not particularly sought after by the German authorities due to their insignifi cance. This was often confi rmed by the denouncers themselves, who wrote letters to the Gestapo complaining of lack of reaction to their previous off ense reports. 57 Denouncers communicated with the Nazi administration in both Polish and German (in writing or in person at the police station). When contacting the Kripo or the Polish police (PP), informers used Polish. Most policemen had served in the national police before the war; however, few of them were stationed in Krakow at the time. Those who took part in investigations supervised by the prosecutor were not originally from the city, but came from neighbouring provinces: Bochnia or Miechów. Franciszek Kózka served in the PP in Chrzanów, 58 while Jan Błoński was employed in an automobile repair workshop in Lviv. 59 Stanisław Turski "Wojtek" was born in Krakow and worked as an intelligence agent for the Polish police in Krakow, while at the same time cooperating with the ZWZ/AK [Union of Armed Struggle/Home Army -from 1943 he was a member of the 'Prostokąt' ['Rectangle'] unit). 60 The police mostly intervened in political and racial matters, many of which were merely an excuse to settle scores with neighbours. That was the case with Józef Korajda, accused not only of illicit trading in pigs, but also of the unlawful possession of a fi rearm. However, the real reason was diff erent -one of the inhabitants of Luboszyca wanted revenge on his neighbour who had been terrorizing the locals. 61 An analysis of the remaining documents shows that other denunciations were less interesting to the police. It took three anonymous letters to persuade them to take an interest in the illegal practices of Marian Sikora, who worked at the tobacco production plant. An investigation failed to produce any evidence of illicit practices. 62 Denouncers and occasional agents were, as I have already mentioned, rewarded for their work -in cash or in kind, i.e. they were given food, vodka, cigarettes, clothes, underwear or textiles by their German supervisors. According to Kwast, a translator for the Gestapo, confi dants did not receive recompense for their work: "they were given things only when they'd done something useful. If it was something big, they earned more; if it was something less signifi cant, they earned less for it". 63 Among those who did not seek compensation were delators: their contact with German authorities was regular, one-off or spontaneous; they acted either overtly or covertly. They wrote reports or appeared at police stations, informing the authorities of any violations in occupation law committed by their neighbours. Their actions were often motivated simply by personal grudges and only some of them treated it as a source of profi t, often through the blackmailing of Jews hiding from persecution. 64 Informers came from various social groups, among them members of the liberal professions (e.g. businessmen, clerks, teachers, academic teachers, farmers), former policemen and soldiers, as well as petty criminals and members of the ZWZ/AK underground. However, Sławomir Buryła, literary scholar also observed that "a signifi cant number of those people were poorly educated". 65 Understandably, the war gave rise to a new class of people who specialized in informing on Jews and people who failed to comply with the occupation law as well as on members of the resistance. Their motives were always the same: money, personal confl icts originating from before the war, fear or anti-Semitism.
While informers and denouncers posed a threat to inhabitants of the Krakow ghetto and Płaszów concentration camp, their actions could have even deadlier consequences for those Jews still hiding on the "Aryan side". Jews seeking refuge in bunkers in the ghetto (after its liquidation) in 1943 were sometimes denounced not only by Poles who made a living out of seeking out the hiding places of Jews in the city and surrounding areas, 66 but also by their own co-religionists, which was especially painful. 67  66 The search for Jews in and around Krakow was also conducted by a special task force of the German police (known as the Jagdkommando), composed of regular police and MP functionaries, created on 2 February 1943. Its main mission was to fi nd and kill Jews who had gone to ground. See: AIPN Kr, sign. 1/857, J. Buszko, R. Kotarba, Działalność represyjna okupanta wobec ludności polskiej za pomoc udzielaną Żydom (w rejonie krakowskim), p. 5. group, however, were not very numerous; 68 their actions were motivated by other reasons. They also faced moral dilemmas. This fact should always be borne in mind when analysing this phenomenon. Polish police functionaries were also engaged in hunting down Jewish fugitives. 69 Some confi dants and informers "specialized" in denouncing Jews living incognito on the "Aryan side", which I shall mention only briefl y in order to outline the problem. They were denounced not only by their neighbours and agents, but also by their friends and relatives. In October 1939, the German authorities seized possession of Henryk Stecki's medical practice after he had been accused of being a Jew. The informant was Stecki's colleague who had known him before the war. 70 The Polish Underground State started to condemn these actions in the fourth year of the war, which I shall discuss in more detail later. Many Jews from Krakow concealing their identities were blackmailed, and the blackmailers threatened to report them to the Germans. This was the reason why Anna Landermann was forced to move from place to place so as to avoid arrest. 71 The Garus family, who began using fake IDs in 1940, were less fortunate. In 1943, Jan and his daughter, Maria, were arrested after they were reported to the Krakow gestapo by Jan's second wife, who subsequently took over her husband's fortune. Jan Garus did not survive the occupation; his daughter returned to Krakow after the war and took Wanda Garus to court. 72 In 1945, Mr Goldfi nger testifi ed before the Jewish Historical Commission: After the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto and other cities, a great number of Jews and children took shelter in other quarters and in the neighbouring villages. Most of them were caught by agents and the "blue uniforms"; the detainees were kept in bunkers on Pomorska street without air, food or water; they were beaten; they kept them there for a few days, and then they were taken, half-dead, a few Jewish policemen. However, members of the Jewish Order Services were often confused with denouncers. Aaron Geldwerk mentioned the search for Jews hiding in the former ghetto area; in his testimony, given after the war, he recalls: 'During the liquidation of the ghetto on 13 March 1943, I hid with my wife and my three children, along with 110 other people, in the attic of one of the houses abandoned during the relocation. Our hiding place was bricked up and concealed; we had a water supply, toilets, and reserves of food. The bunker was approx. 30 m long and 12 m wide. Odeman Brodman's brother-in-law was hiding with us; Brodman came for him on the following day and promised that he would rescue all of us. We felt, however, that we were already doomed, as we were fairly certain that Brodman would report us. And we were right: Kunde came looking for us the next morning and when we saw him through a concealed window, we knew we had been betrayed. Kunde kept looking, knocking on walls; we knew he had been told exactly where to look, because he approached the correct wall, where the exit was very thoroughly masked with old bricks and lime, and he kept calling: »Juden, öff net, er wird euch nischt geschehen, ich in auch Jude«. […] On the following day, Kunde came with an entire OD unit led by Brodman. […] We were taken to the OD station. When we walked down the stairs, my son, Salomon, who was 20 at the time, saw Brodman and said that his fate would be far worse than ours, that God would punish him for it. We knew that around 100 people from the bunker had been arrested on the previous day and shot on the spot'. to Montelupich, where they were beaten all over again; every day, the corpses of a few murdered Jews were transported out of the prison. 73 Informers in Płaszów usually tipped off the commandants of illegal smuggling, planned escapes or hidden valuables. Most of them, with a few exceptions, remained anonymous or were merely mentioned by their last name, according to surviving records from the occupation. The information we have on them mostly comes from reports written by underground organizations and the "Żegota" Council to Aid Jews from 1943 and 1944. On 16 December 1943 the latter organization noted the death of 40 people murdered in Płaszów, i.e. Jewish policemen and informers who had become liabilities. 74 A separate issue concerned rumours that circulated in the camp regarding individuals often seen in the company of the most eager prisoner functionaries or camp personnel. 75 Those reports, made either in writing or personally, initiated specifi c procedures based on legal and administrative regulations. They usually began with a notifi cation sent to a police station or an application register and were followed by an analysis of its contents. Subsequently, the notifi cation was referred to the relevant police unit working in conjunction with its Polish or German counterpart (Polish police, Kripo 76 and Gestapo, especially); a case-handling functionary was appointed and an investigation was launched, which was then referred to the state authorities; the prosecutor's offi ce initiated criminal procedures, and the case was brought to trial and concluded with a fi nal verdict. Between 1939 and 1944, several hundred cases were referred to Krakow's district and municipal courts by police units; many of them based on anonymous and signed denunciations. These were addressed to the Gestapo, Kripo, the Polish police, security police, the governor's offi ce, the directorate of German police, the public security division, the military police or even Hans Frank, the general governor himself.
The number of denunciations was relatively high in occupied Poland; post offi ce employees working for Polish underground organizations managed to intercept some of them. 77 In 1942 one of the cells of the "Skała" Independent Guerilla Battalion in Krakow was responsible for intercepting denunciations addressed to the Gestapo; it was led by Józef Baster, a.k.a. "Rak", 78 and it succeeded in "confi scating thousands of anonymous letters". 79 The counterintelligence unit overseeing the area covered by the main post offi ce in the capital of the GG, where anonymous denunciations were intercepted, was 73 AŻIH, sign. 301/574, an account by Mr Goldfi nger. headed by Stefan Faber, a.k.a. "Stefan", who supervised one of Baster's cells. 80 One fi le that has survived contains 250 reports to the German authorities from the years 1940 and 1941, mostly concerning Warsaw and other towns (e.g. Otwock, Pruszków, Grójec, Lublin, Radom, Łódź and Biała Podlaska). 81 Most of these denunciations were written by Poles, but some also came from Volksdeutsche and Jews. Their authors had a variety of professional backgrounds and represented various social groups and classes. This type of activity qualifi es, without a doubt, as collaboration. 82 This was also the case with reports sent by Krakow citizens; however, they were harder to identify, mainly because most of them were written in German.

Activities of the Polish resistance
Underground organizations, such as the Secret Military Organization of the Krakow Garrison, which was incorporated into the Union of Armed Struggle, and later into the Home Army, were responsible for exposing and eliminating collaborators with the Gestapo. A civil resistance division was established towards the end of 1941. In 1942 articles condemning "snitches" began to appear in the underground press, a trend that coincided with the establishment of the courts of Krakow's District Government Delegation for Poland. Two years earlier, lists of Volksdeutsche were published; Poles acting to the detriment of the nation, e.g. working in or for German institutions, subscribing to the newspaper Goniec Krakowski, using the German names of streets and squares in their letters or "acting friendly towards the Germans" -were all put on a black list. In the third year of the war, the press warned of the threat posed by Poles returning to Krakow from POW camps, and published their personal details. As stated in one of the issues of Goniec Krakowski: "We do not want to condemn those gentlemen preemptively; however -as we are fairly sure of the credibility of this informationwe would like to warn our citizens to steer clear of them". 83 The reasons for which the underground press warned citizens to be wary of these people are unknown, but they were probably suspected of acts of espionage.
A list of individuals accused of possible collaboration and of denouncing their fellow citizens was published in 1943. From that year onwards, the "Żelbet" group stepped up their intelligence operations under the auspices of the Home Army. 84 Members of the "Alicja" platoon 85 and the 'B' II unit of the Krakow Home Army, whose fi les covered fi ve divisions, also took it upon themselves to expose Nazi informers. The diversion and sabotage groups were composed of around 20 soldiers, which in turn were divided into patrols numbering fi ve or six individuals. counterintelligence were supervised at the time by Stanisław "Sprężyna" Czapkiewicz, who drew up a list of agents and confi dants suspected of working for the Gestapo. 86 On 15 July 1943, the Directorate of Underground Resistance was established. Considering the fact that the fi rst reports on informers date back to the fi rst years of the war, the resistance's response was somewhat belated. 87 Reports compiled by the resistance, partially preserved in Polish archives, were written in 1943. They contain brief details on individuals whose actions were being monitored (fi rst and last name, charges, address) or detailed reports on reconnaissance operations in a suspect's place of residence; in some cases, testimonies of witnesses were collected. The fi nal result of the diversionary unit's eff orts was a list of names of agents, partially published in the "Małopolski Biuletyn Informacyjny" [Newsletter of the Lesser Poland Region] or the "Małopolska Agencja Prasowa" [Lesser Poland Region Press Agency], together with the following verdicts: public condemnation reprimand or death, which I shall discuss in more detail in the following sections. Another matter concerned the resistance movement's failed operations, for example, unsuccessful attempts to liquidate informers or innocent people being accused of collaborating with the German authorities based on, for example, hearsay and unsubstantiated reports. There were also cases in which a diversionary unit was unable to gather the evidence required to execute a sentence -criminal reports often contained vague information on the suspect and their crimes, as well as reports made to underground organizations.
The Civil Special Court acting under the auspices of the Directorate of Civil Resistance for the Krakow district began to function in the fi rst half of 1943. It maintained contact with the Special Military Court at the headquarters of the Home Army's Krakow district. Underground courts enforced the orders of the Directorate of Civil Resistance. Serious crimes against the vital interests of the nation, state and its citizens, requiring immediate punishment, fell under the jurisdiction of the Special Civil Courts. Functioning at the lowest level of the underground justice systems were the Civil Resistance Court Commissions. 88 The Special Civil Court operated in Krakow until October 1944. 89 According to offi cial releases of the underground press, the Krakow district SCC pronounced 67 death sentences against those guilty of collaborating with Nazi security and administration institutions. 90 Offi cially, 34 of those sentences were carried out before the end of the occupation (according to information provided by the underground press). Among those convicted were 15 Krakow citizens (seven death penalties, fi ve public condemnations, two reprimands). The others originated from such places as Brzesko, Trzebinia, Sokołów, Łańcut and Trzcina. 91 Not all sentences were published in the underground newspapers; more were probably carried out in reality. For example, the "Żelbet" diversionary unit reported that between mid-1943 and July 1944, 29 people were executed (including two individuals 91 Calculations made by the author based on underground press releases: Biuletyn Informacji Małopolskiej, no. 16-47 (1943-1944Wo lność, no. 46-57 (September-November 1943), where information on executions was published. whose names remain unknown). 92 Only two of those deaths were announced by the press. 93 The documents suggest that 63 Nazi collaborators were executed in the Krakow district. This may be a rough estimate, as only part of the fi le of the Krakow district of the ZWZ/AK has survived. Some of the information regarding executions was actually false, and a number of individuals supposed to have been executed in fact escaped punishment: they left the city before they could be arrested. There is also the question of verdicts based merely on hearsay or the desire of the accuser for revenge. According to order no. 840/1 of the commander in chief of the Home Army of 11 August 1943, in the event that there was an immediate danger of Home Army soldiers being exposed, commanders were "entitled, as stated in the regulations, to eliminate the suspect on sight". In the fall of 1943, the civil courts adopted a more "tolerant attitude" as a consequence of the merciless response of the German authorities (10 Poles were executed for every one informer killed by the resistance). As a consequence, many collaborators escaped punishment, and only some of them were held accountable for their actions after the war. Accusations against informers and denouncers were especially diffi cult for postwar prosecutors to investigate, as they were as hard to prove after the liberation as they were during the war.

The post-war settling of scores
In the fi nal year of the war, pursuant to the decree of 31 August 1944 "on the sentencing of Fascist-Nazi war criminals guilty of murder and torture of civilians and prisoners of war, as well as of traitors of the Polish Nation" the handling of cases involving war crimes became the primary concern of Polish DA offi ces of Special Criminal Courts, Administration Courts, District Courts and the Supreme National Tribunal. 94 By 22 July 1946, 8,838 indictments had been submitted to the Special Criminal Court; 4,593 cases were resolved; 306 people were sentenced to long-term imprisonment and 631 to death. 95 The Supreme National Tribunal was established on 21 January 1946; it continued to function until 1948. During that time, the tribunal convicted 40 war criminals; 20 of them were sentenced to death.
The archives of the Krakow branch of the Institute of National Remembrance show that 2,263 criminal cases were brought against defendants based on the abovementioned decree of 31 August 1944. 96 According to the records of the Krakow Special Criminal Court, most of the cases cited above concerned denunciations and collaboration with the Nazi authorities during World War II. At this point in my research, I am unable to give an estimated number of post-war criminal cases concerning denunciation-related off enses stricto sensu; it requires a more in-depth study. It results, among other things, from the fact that indictments rarely mentioned those charges. It was qualifi ed as treason or collaboration with the Nazis; more often than not, the fact that the defendant was a Nazi denouncer was not revealed until the criminal investigation. One of the examples is the case of Aniela S., Jan Ł., Mieczysław K. and Ludwik S., charged in 1945 with "acting to the detriment of Polish nationals". As it turned out during witness hearings, in the autumn of 1943, Mrs Tańcul denounced two female Jews, who had lived at her house with a child, to the village leader, Mr Łańcuszka. The latter reported that to the Polish police station in Trąbki. M. K. and L. S., based on the abovementioned reports, came to Przebieczany and shot three Jews, i.e. two Jewish women and a child, and seized their property.
The prosecutors were unable to fi nd suffi cient evidence to sentence them for their crimes. They were, instead, found guilty of participating in denouncing people assigned to forced labour in the Third Reich. 97 Terminology introduced by the August Decree, defi ning collaboration with the German authorities, covers also overt or anonymous informants of the Gestapo who reported Poles and Jews wanted by the secret police, revealing their location, intimidation of tenants by threatening to denounce them to the Nazis, and sometimes also ostentatious support for the Nazi policy (such as hanging Hitler's portrait on the walls, organizing meetings for Germans or using their protection). The post-war interpretation of the decree was rather general in nature and allowed punishment for various off enses. It mentioned numerous ways of acting to the detriment of the Polish state and its citizens, e.g. the reporting or arresting of wanted persons or those persecuted by the Nazis on grounds of their nationality, religion, race or for political reasons (which was all part of the denouncers' activity during the war), extortion, participation in the killing of civilians or prisoners of war, participation in organized crime or otherwise acting to the detriment of the Polish state, Polish legal entities, civilians, military personnel or prisoners of war. It was also mentioned that "acting or failure to act under threat or upon orders does not release the accused from criminal responsibility" (art. 5, par 1).
It was often hard to verify those accusations, not only due to the chaos that reigned at the time in the new, post-war reality, but also to other, more obvious reasons. Witnesses either died or left the country during the war or shortly afterwards, or it was impossible to locate them: they had in many cases gone into hiding for political reasons or had not returned from concentration camps. Others chose not to appear at hearings for fear of the revenge of those against whom they were supposed to testify. Old animosities were very much alive, and victims often lived close to their abusers or passed them on the streets of Krakow. 98 The atmosphere in the entire country, at the time, was that of widespread insecurity and mistrust, which was yet another obstacle preventing victims from bringing denouncers -their neighbours or relatives -to justice.
Investigations that the authorities succeeded in opening were launched on the basis of oral or written statements usually submitted personally to a Citizens' Militia station in the presence of a functionary; initial procedures were then put in motion, in accordance with protocols similar to those from the occupation period, including for the 97 AIPN Kr,Wtedy. STĘPIEŃ,Miasto opowiedziane. STĘPIEŃ,Powroty krakowskich Żydow,[255][256][257][258][259][260][261][262][263][264][265][266] investigation proper and the court trial. Not every report led to criminal proceedings; sometimes proceed ings were suspended during the verifi cation stage. If a person decided to submit such a report after the war, they would usually chose the police station located closest to their place of residence -just as was the case during the occupation. The victims would testify against alleged informers, but then again so would people who, acting out revenge, made false accusations in their statements. 99 Thus, courts heard cases involving not only real informers, but also innocent people. Most cases concluded with acquittals, many of them, as I have already mentioned, being suspended during the investigation. It should also be mentioned that some cases were closed as the a llegations had been deemed unfounded; some of the off ense reports were based on conjecture, rumours or -quite often -desire for revenge, the settling of old scores or pure malice. Those cases had little in common with actual facts, and they became (similarly as during the occupation) a means to an end, such as the seizure of property, prospects of promotion at work etc. 100 As this particular research area is broad and complex, and requires a separate study, I shall present below only a few selected examples of cases that came to trial.
On 5 March 1945, the inhabitants of the tenement building at 4 Hetmańska Street wrote to the new, communist authorities of Krakow: Mr. and Mrs. Konik, who, between 1941 and1944, were the caretakers at our house, during that time harassed and blackmailed almost all the residents for no reason whatsoever, insulting them, and using the most off ensive language. They were regular informers of the former "blue uniforms"; they frequented the police stations, reporting made-up "crimes", allegedly committed by the tenants. 101 The court found them not guilty Many other cases ended in acqquittal or the prosecutors simply suspending proceedings. For example, the residents of Bawół Square were blackmailed by their neighbours, the P. family. In their trial after the war, several male and female caretakers from neighbouring houses testifi ed as witnesses, describing in detail the meetings of the accused with the Gestapo. They were not convicted, as the court found the evidence lacking -the testimonies of the witnesses were deemed insuffi cient, even though they confi rmed that these events had indeed taken place.
99 False reports of off enses not committed were supposed to be prosecuted as off enses against the course of justice consisting in reporting an off ense to an authority responsible for instigating criminal proceedings in full awareness of the fact that the said off ense was not committed. Those guilty of that crime were to be subject to adequate sanctions, in accordance with procedures similar to those from WWII. During the war, these off enses were punished, based on evidence gathered, with several months to a year in prison. After the war, as I have already mentioned, it was more diffi cult to gather information, witnesses were dead or feared revenge from those closest to them, or were impossible to locate. In the post-war chaos accompanying the creation of new legal and state structures, as well as numerous crimes (see: ZAREMBA, Wielka trwoga.), many cases and proceedings instigated by the prosecution were discontinued, the defendants being exonerated due to lack of evidence.
In November 1945, a judge by the name of Bartynowski discontinued an investigation into a report made several months earlier by the caretaker of 5 Biskupia Street in Krakow in which he accused Irina Albon of threatening civilians that she would denounce them to the Gestapo. He also claimed that she extorted money and blackmailed the local community. An investigation showed that Albon, who was a Czech Jew, went into hiding in 1942 using false Aryan papers, and tenants' suspicions regarding her behaviour were due to mistrust and prejudice. They feared her because she kept to herself and met with strangers at diff erent times of the day. She was a newcomer who kept her distance from her neighbours. 102

Conclusions
Collaboration with the Germans during World War II was both institutionalized and informal, forced and voluntary, and people who decided to become Nazi informers and, among other things, denounced their Jewish neighbours, their colleagues working for the resistance, or brothers-in-law they disliked and wanted out of the apartment, did so overtly or anonymously. They made oral statements at German or Polish police stations or wrote letters to the Gestapo. Sometimes they even used both channels, counting on a swifter response from the authorities. Those who were more desperate provided the date of their visit at the station or the time that had elapsed since their last letter ("I informed the police a week ago"). 103 They emphasized the fact that it was their second or third report. Such a letter would begin, for example, with the heading: "To the Secret State Police in Krakow. This is letter no. 2". 104 One of the characteristic features of written statements was their matter-of-factness and the multiplicity of problems addressed in those letters. They often contained more than one accusation, such as illegal trading engaged in by a person of Jewish origin, or the crime of working for the resistance (for example, "he trades in coal without a permit, selling coal to Jews at prices bordering on usury"), 105 which shows the authors' determined eff orts to have their enemies punished.
Very few of the informers and confi dants were part of the criminal underworld before the war. 106 Collaborators were an entirely new category created by the occupation. Their actions were motivated mostly by the rapidly changing situation in the city, forcing them to adapt to the new totalitarian regime, which created many opportunities for the making of "easy money" or the fi nding of lucrative jobs, while at the same time allowing them to settle old scores or resolve new confl icts. In the fi rst years of the occupation, informers primarily kept a lookout for any infringements of the law committed by their fellow citizens; less frequently they were asked to report on those in contact with the resistance or Jews concealing their identity. This changed in 1942 and 1943, when the top priority for agents became the exposing of members of the underground and Jews with illegal Aryan papers etc., as well as the people helping them.
Informers and denouncers were the most eff ective means by which the occupier could maintain control over society. They fi lled the "gaps" in police activities, ensuring Krakow and its citizens were under complete and constant surveillance. As a consequence, the Nazi authorities were informed, on an ongoing basis, of the situation in the city. Caretakers monitored the behaviour of tenants, neighbours were suspicious of new residents -and after the war, they accused one another of being Nazi informers. Those who actually reported on them often wrote letters in German in an eff ort to remain anonymous. 107 They feared for their safety (and were afraid of collective responsibility), or -conversely -were trying to get attention. Stefania S., the author of one denunciation from 1943, provided her personal details in the letter, along with a note stating that "I, the undersigned, may testify under oath in a court of law". Besides, as Wolfgang Sofsky wrote: "Informers and spies were smuggled into areas of possible activity that eluded surveillance -a second, secret, auxiliary band of traitors to keep tabs on the offi cial agents". 108 SS-Obersturmführer Kurt Heinrich August Dietrich Heinemeyer, an offi cer of the Krakow Gestapo, interrogated after the war by the prosecution of the Special Criminal Court in Krakow, testifi ed that the number of denunciations received by the German authorities during the occupation was so high that they had been unable to verify all of them. 109 This is a rather general statement; however, considering the fact that even in September 1939, the Gestapo in Łódź received approximately 40 denunciations per day, 110 it might have been true. Heinemeyer, who in 1940 was appointed head of the Krakow KdS and in 1943 head of Subdivision IV-A-1 responsible for combating Polish left-wing organizations, relied on his colleagues or subordinates for information. Maria Hochberg-Mariańska, a Jew using "Aryan papers", who worked with a local resistance cell, claimed that "Krakow was less infested with denouncers and blackmailers than Warsaw was". 111 Hochberg-Mariańska's words also explain little. However, unlike Heinemeyer, she was part of a group that was in immediate danger of being denounced by informers -she was a Jew in hiding who worked with members of the Home Army, which did not begin trying to eradicate this vile practice until 1943, even though the underground press had offi cially condemned denouncers a year before.
The eff orts of the Krakow resistance to combat Nazi collaborators were far from a resounding success. In the entire Krakow district, only 63 individuals were executed, and 15 individuals from the city were denounced in the public press, whereas almost 2000 agents were active in the district. It should be noted that not all the information provided on confi dants and denouncers was credible -which probably explains the limited results of the resistance in this area; the overwhelming presence of the Germans in the city was also not without signifi cance.
The German occupation of Krakow changed, and somewhat radically, the deeply entrenched social fabric of the city and the mentality of its inhabitants, violating many values; it deepened the divide between ethnic groups, heightened mistrust and stirred up latent anti-Semitism. Jews fell victim to post-war pogroms (particularly in Kielce andKrakow in 1945 and1946) or were forced to leave the country. 112 Those who decided to stay in Krakow often had to pass their oppressors on the street. Only some of them reported their crimes to the Citizens' Militia; usually, they testifi ed before local branches of Jewish Commissions. The two institutions cooperated, exchanging documentation. 113 The same witnesses were interrogated repeatedly. Many members of the militia had also served in the criminal police or the Polish police. As a consequence, they were mistrusted, as many members of the Jewish community remembered their participation in the operations launched against them.
The courtroom became the perfect platform for resolving neighbourly or political confl icts -it gave the claimants an instrument to bring (real or alleged) collaborators to justice. In the years that followed, the new Communist regime used the August Decree to deal with its political enemies.