 Overall, it took the Polish underground until late 1942 to legislate and organize non-military courts which were authorized to pass death sentences for civilian crimes, such as non-treasonous collaboration, extortion and blackmail.According to Joseph Kermish from Israel, among the thousands of collaborators sentenced to death by the Special Courts and executed by the Polish resistance fighters who risked death carrying out these verdicts, few were explicitly blackmailers or informers who had persecuted Jews.This, according to Kermish, led to increasing boldness of some of the blackmailers in their criminal activities.