Jan and Anna Puchalski

[1] Their medals of honor were presented to their surviving children at a ceremony in Jerusalem on June 14, 1987, during which Irena Puchalska-Bagińska, Zdzisław, son of Sabina Puchalska-Kazimierczyk, Władysław Puchalski and Krystyna Puchalska-Maciejewska planted a tree in the Garden of the Righteous at Yad Vashem.

On the evening of the Nazi German murderous raid on Grodno Ghetto which took place on February 13, 1943, six Jews who escaped, showed up at Puchalskis door.

Meanwhile, the ghetto in Grodno was razed by the Germans with all of its 29,000 Jews deported in Holocaust trains, and exterminated in gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka.

At first, the six Jews hid outside the house in a cellar, which was not safe enough, with the Nazi threat of the death penalty looming over everyone, including the Puchalski children.

[citation needed] Subsequently, with the help of the family, a dugout was built under one of their two bedrooms, occupied by three elder sisters (Sabina, Irena and Krystyna) who kept watch.

When German soldiers retreating before the advancing Russian front settled in the house, four Jews slipped out at night and wandered for several days.