In June 1941, German and Romanian troops occupied Bessarabia (now Moldavia). The Jews living in the region were taken to Transnistria soon afterward. Maria and Mikhail Shnaidman managed to escape with their daughter Polina to the village of Suhaia Rîbnița (Moldavia) and hide there. Fearing they would be discovered, they asked the farmer Adolf Buka and his wife to take in their six-year-old daughter. Maria and Mikhail Shnaidman were in fact denounced and murdered at the end of 1941. Shortly after, Buka was arrested and interrogated on suspicion of hiding Jews. He denied doing so, despite being tortured. Polina Shnaidman was not discovered. She hid at the Bukas’ farm until liberation in 1944.
In 1961 the Bukas adopted Polina Shnaidman. Adolf Buka was honored by the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Center Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations in 2001.