Some Polish institutions , including the police ( the number of the so-called Blue Police reached about 12,500 in 1943 ) , were preserved in the General Government . Over 40,000 Poles worked in the General Government 's administration , supervised by over 10,000 Germans . Political activity was prohibited and only basic Polish education was allowed . University professors in Kraków were sent to a concentration camp and in Lviv were shot . Ethnic Poles were to be gradually eliminated . The Jews , intended for a more immediate extermination , were herded into ghettos and severely repressed . The Jewish councils in the ghettos had to follow the German policies . Many Jews escaped to the Soviet Union ( they were among the estimated 300,000 to 400,000 refugees that arrived there from German-occupied Poland ) and some were sheltered by Polish families
more immediate extermination
The Holocaust
History of Poland (1939–1945)