Zygmunt Dębski lived in Lwów at ul. Rybacka 24 and studied at the Lwów University of Technology.
Dawid (Duczek) Akselbrad lived with his younger brother Artur (1929-1942), their uncle, Herman Akselbrad (1874-1943), and his wife, Berta (1879-1943). After the death of the boys' mother, Anna Flora (Hana Bluma) nee Merrer in 1934, the Akselbrad family adopted Dawid and Artur.
At the beginning of the German occupation of Lwów, Dębski met Duczek through Irena Cielecka (1915-1967), who was engaged in the underground activity. The young men became friends.
Duczek had escaped from the Lwów ghetto, but had not managed to get to Hungary. Through Cielecka, he became involved in the underground activity of the Home Army, using the name "Leopold Kucharski". In Lwów, he lived in Cielecka's home at ul. Kochanowskiego 41, in Dębski's home and with Professor Emil Erlich in Borysław.
He was involved in the preparation of false documents. As his German language skills were excellent, he was also a liaison officer between Warsaw and Lwów, transporting weapons. He helped to hide Jews, among others, his friend Ignacy Kriegl.
As Dębski recounted, he accompanied Duczek on his journeys to Jarosław, where, in the ghetto, they visited the family of Dr. Zilberstein, a former director of the PKO bank in Lwów, providing the with food. They also led Duczek's grandfather and his family from Gródek Jagielloński, took them to Lwów and hid them there. He also took a Jewish couple from Lwów to Borysław.
Irena Cielecka's mother, Helena nee Szenker, was a Jew. With the help of his acquaintances, Dębski removed the page concerning her family from the registration book. After changing the birth certificate to the name "Szumbara", he organised three apartments in Lwów.
After the Soviet Army entered Lwów in the summer of 1944, Duczek was arrested together with other members of his Home Army unit and was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was sent to a gold mine in Siberia, where he worked in a team of electricians and other tradesmen. He returned to Poland as a result of the amnesty following Stalin's death in 1953.
In a statement, Dębski wrote bitterly, "We survived the terrible Nazi ordeal. We were arrested a few times. The Home Army squads rescued us and, when peace and joy was expected to come, my friend was arrested, taken away, destroyed morally, physically and mentally".
In 1946, Dębski and Cielecka moved from Lwów to Gliwice with her mother and brother Bolesław. There, they married raised two children. Irena was a judge in the Gliwice District Court. Her mother died in 1947, as did her brother in 1982.
Duczek stayed with them prior to his departure for Israel, where he found his father, Herman Zwi Czaczkes. In Israel, he married Rina nee Sheinberg, who had also survived the Holocaust. They had seven children. Contact broke off after Dębska's death, but Dębski contacted Duczek again in 1987.
In 1988, the Yad Vashem Institute honoured him the title of "Righteous Among the Nations".
