During the Second World War Anna and Stanisław Krzywicki had been hiding in their house in the village of Dulkowszczyzna the three-person Trachtenberg family – owners of an agricultural machine warehouse in Grodno.
In 1941, after the Red Army retreated, Grodno came under the Nazi occupation. The Germans founded two ghettos: one for Jews they considered “useful” to the economy of the Third Reich, and the other for those they found worthless, unable to work. From November 1942 to March 1943 took place successive deportations, mainly to the camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Meir Trachtenberg together with his wife and son managed to escape from the Grodno ghetto before one of the liquidation actions. In March 1943 they reached the village of Dulkowszczyzna, about 20 kilometers away from Grodno. They asked the Krzywickis for help. The families knew each other before the war.
The Krzywickis took the Trachtenbergs in. They prepared a small hiding place in their barn, covering it with straw. Their three children – Henryka, Janina and Józef – helped them in the hiding. The Nazis searched the farm twice, but they did not find the Jews.
The Trachtenbergs had been hiding in Dulkowszczyzna for over a year. After the liberation, in June 1944, they left to Białystok and then emigrated to the United States.
After the war the two families lost contact. They got in touch again in the fifties, when the Trachtenbergs started writing letters to their saviors.