Amnesty of 1947 The Amnesty of 1947 in Poland was an amnesty directed at soldiers and activists of the Polish anti - communist underground , issued by the authorities of People ' s Republic of Poland . The law on amnesty was passed by the Polish Sejm on February 22 , 1947 . The actual purpose of the amnesty was the liquidation of coordinated resistance to the newly established communist regime . The promise of amnesty was not kept . Information collected during questioning of the " cursed soldiers " who had revealed themselves led to a later round of arrests and repression , including of those who stayed in hiding . This was the second amnesty in Poland after World War II . The first one lasted from July 22 , 1945 until October 15 , 1945 . The Amnesty . The Amnesty was in effect for two months , from February 25 until April 25 , 1947 . There was no provision for its extension . The execution of the amnesty law was placed in the hands of the Ministry of Public Security ( UB ) . The amnesty did not apply to the members of the Ukrainian nationalist organizations , such as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army , as were considered allies of Nazi Germany by the communist government . Throughout Poland , special " National Amnesty Committees " were formed , attached to the local stations of the Polish political police , UB . Each person who gave himself up as part of the amnesty had to give up his weapons , if he had any , fill out a detailed form in which he revealed the underground resistance group he was a member of , as well as his conspiratorial code name and other information . During the amnesty , from fifty three to fifty five thousand people came out of the underground and presented themselves to the authorities . A further 23 , 257 persons who had already been imprisoned declared themselves members of underground organizations in order to take advantage of the law . All together the amnesty ended up covering 76 , 774 people . For the most part these consisted of soldiers from various underground organizations , such as Freedom and Independence ( WiN ) and National Armed Forces ( NSZ ) , as well as deserters from the Polish People ' s Army , the milicja ( MO ) and the UB . According to official statistics of the Ministry of Public Security , 90 % of all members of the organization Freedom and Independence revealed themselves , and about 60 % of all members of National Armed Forces . For comparison , in the previous amnesty of 1945 , only 30 , 217 persons left the underground resistance many of whom soon returned to actively fighting the communist government . Consequences . As a result , after the expiration of the deadline in 1947 , there remained no more than two thousand soldiers in the armed anti - communist underground . A well organized resistance practically ceased to exist . Thanks to the information obtained from those who gave themselves up , the UB was able to more quickly hunt down and eliminate those who remained in the underground . Almost as soon as the amnesty expired the communist authorities began to go back on their promises . All the information was analyzed and many of the former soldiers were called back to give more information about their friends and fellow soldiers who remained in the underground . Many of them were consequently arrested on trumped up charges . Between 1948 and 1950 a further number were arrested on charges which were supposed to been have covered by the amnesty . A number of those who had given themselves up , as a result , returned to the underground although they mostly ceased participation in armed resistance .