In 1940 the widower Ajzyk Wierzbicki and his children Nathan and Nacha had to move into the Warsaw ghetto. Since food was scarce there, their non-Jewish friends from the Kostański family smuggled food into the ghetto. Ajzyk Wierzbicki sold some of it to other ghetto inmates.
When the deportations to extermination camps began in 1942, Aizyk Wierzbicki and his children escaped the ghetto with the Kostańskis’ help. Władysława Kostańska sheltered them for a short time in her own home and her brother’s vacant apartment. Unable to find a long-term hiding place, the Wierzbickis went into the nearby Otwock ghetto, where no deportations had yet taken place. They were arrested in a raid there in August 1942 but were able to escape from the deportation train and go into hiding with the Kostańskis.
In 1943 the Wierzbickis returned to the Warsaw ghetto, since the Kostańskis could no longer hide them in their home. In March 1943 they again fled the ghetto and were once again sheltered by the Kostańskis. The Wierzbickis lived in hiding until Warsaw was liberated. Aizyk Wierzbicki married his helper Władysława Kostańska in 1946.