Thelma (Krueger) Krugman was born on February 14, 1927 in Sowina, Poland. Her family lived there in a small self-supporting farm. They were forcibly evicted by the invading Nazis and deported to the Kolaczyce ghetto in 1940. They remained there, barely subsiding, until they managed to escape during the final roundup for transport to the Treblinka death camp. Their flight proved to be provident. Most of the ghetto occupants, including their grandmother, aunts, uncles, and their children were herded to an open grave and slaughtered by gunfire.
The Kruegers hid in a wooded area near Sowina, living on berries and fruit gleaned from nearby orchards until their father could persuade some of their former neighbors to harbor them by pledging future compensation for their aid. Thelma and her younger sister, Jean, were sheltered in the loft of an outdoor pig shed owned by Joseph Hendzel, a cramped area filled with bales of straw. They lived there for the next forty-four months, undernourished, filthy, and vermin-ridden, while narrowly escaping the frequent Gestapo searches for hidden Jews.
Barely ambulatory, Thelma and Jean were finally freed when the Nazis were driven out by the Soviet army. They were reunited with their parents, brother, and sisters. But when their parents and brother returned to their farm to look for food and reclaim their assets, they were killed by Poles. Thelma and her sisters had lost their grandparents, father, mother, brother, and almost all of their relatives during this brutal era.
The surviving sisters left Poland in 1946 to escape their painful memories and the continuing anti-Semitic environment. They all eventually immigrated to the United States. In 1949, Thelma married Leonard Krugman, an engineer employed by RCA. They had three daughters. They moved to El Paso in 1976 when RCA transferred Leonard to their Juarez, Mexico plant. In December 2002, with the support of the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, Thelma and her sisters honored their rescuers, and those of their family members. Yad Vashem recognized Stanisław and Anna Kopeć, and Jan and Kunegunda Frączek and their daughter, Adela Frączek-Liszka, as Righteous Among the Nations. A few years later, Thelma and Leonard moved to Florida.