Under the German occupation of Poland during World War II, Podgórze district was closed off in March 1941 as a ghetto for local area Jewry.

In his published testimonies, Pankiewicz makes particular mention of hair dyes used by those disguising their identities and tranquilizers given to fretful children required to keep silent during Gestapo raids.

Pankiewicz and his staff, Irena Drozdzikowska, Helena Krywaniuk, and Aurelia Daner-Czortkowa,[4] risked their lives to undertake numerous clandestine operations: smuggling food and information, and offering shelter on the premises for Jews facing deportation to the camps.

The film's director Steven Spielberg donated $40,000 for the building's preservation, for which he was honored by the city of Kraków with its prestigious "Patron of Culture" award for the year 2004.

He was not the only director of a Holocaust-related movie, who paid tribute to Pankiewicz's activity: in 2002 Roman Polanski, once a prisoner of the Krakow ghetto himself, donated a sum of money for the expansion of the museum in the former pharmacy.