Piotr Zysman lived in Warsaw with his parents Teodora and Józef Zysman, a lawyer. In the fall of 1940, the family had to move to the ghetto. When in the summer of 1942 ghetto residents were increasingly deported to the Treblinka extermination camp, Józef Zysman asked his former coworker Wacław Szyszkowski to take in Piotr. Szyszkowski agreed. Irena Sendler, member of the aid organization Żegota, planned the boy’s escape through the sewer system. Zysman was only sheltered temporarily at the Szyszkowskis, who had three small children of their own and also helped other Jews. Until liberation, Zysman took on a false identity and hid in various places in and around Warsaw. The Szyszkowskis helped him find new hiding places. In February 1945, Piotr Zysman was reunited with his mother Teodora; she had escaped from the ghetto in 1942 and survived in Warsaw disguised as a Christian. At that time he was in a Catholic children’s home near Warsaw. His father Józef Zysman had been murdered in 1943.