Blue Police

The force was established by Hans Frank's ordinance of 17 December 1939; former officers of the pre-war State Police had earlier been ordered to report under threat of severe punishment. It numbered between ten and twenty thousand men and answered to the German Order Police, the highest Polish post being that of a town or county commandant. It dealt with ordinary crime, traffic and public order, but it also guarded ghetto walls, took part in round-ups and deportations, and hunted Jews in hiding.

Its record is mixed. Some policemen collaborated, blackmailed and murdered Jews, and the underground passed sentences on the worst of them. At the same time many belonged to the resistance, chiefly the Home Army and the State Security Corps, passing on information and warning of raids, and some fifteen have been recognised as Righteous Among the Nations. The Polish Committee of National Liberation dissolved the force in August 1944.