Emma Haamel was not married and worked in the Jewish couple Martin and Eva Ehrlich’s Berlin household from 1908. The former Reichsbahn civil servant Martin Ehrlich died in 1936. Emma Haamel went on to work as a cleaner for Osram but continued to live with Ehrlich’s widow and her son Ernst Ludwig (Lutz; born 1921) on Levetzowstraße in the Tiergarten district.
At the end of February 1943, Eva Ehrlich was deported; her son managed to go underground at the last moment. After his escape, the Gestapo questioned Emma Haamel about his whereabouts, but she claimed not to know where he was.
Eventually, Emma Haamel had to vacate the Levetzowstraße apartment. She moved into her cousin’s building on Windscheidstraße in Charlottenburg, where she worked as a porter. Lutz Ehrlich spent the night there two or three times, and received food from her. Staying any longer would have been too dangerous, since he had grown up in the neighborhood and was known there. Lutz Ehrlich succeeded in escaping to Switzerland in June 1943. After the war, he visited Emma Haamel on several occasions in her home town of Wittenberge an der Elbe.