On September 1, 1939 Poland was attacked by the Nazi army. On September 17, the Red Army invaded as well. Poland ceased to exist, and so did its penal law. The Nazi occupation was very harsh for Polish society, and all its Jewish members were put into ghettoes. Later, when Die Endlösung policy was carried out, any help to the Jewish people was scourged, by and large to death. In the time of war the rule of "nullum crimen sine lege" went for nothing. After the war Poland became a communist state, with a totalitarian régime. Although the new government upheld the Penal Code of 1932, it was not an obstacle for putting political enemies to jails. Special national security acts issued in the late 1940s and early 1950s, allowed communist judges to sentence many people to death without a fair trial. Many people went missing. After the thaw of 1956, often called the Polish October, this situation began to change.