On September 11, 1944, Karola Bernauer and her mother Nanny, who was Jewish, had to report to the Cologne-Müngersdorf assembly camp. Erwin Bernauer, Karola’s father, accompanied them although he was not Jewish.
Karola Bernauer was given the task of looking after the sick in the camp. When she was sent out to obtain medication, she fled to Maria Meier, the family’s former nursemaid, who took her into her home in Lohmar, around 15 miles (25 km) southeast of Cologne.
The next day, Maria Meier’s 18-year-old daughter Käthe flirted with one of the guards and managed to get Erwin and Nanny Bernauer out of the camp and take them to Lohmar as well.
The Meiers hid the family in the basement of their house for about four months, until neighbors grew suspicious. They received extra food from local farmer friends, the Weegs. Around the turn of 1944 to 1945, Ludwig and Elisabeth Weeg in took the endangered family. Karola’s sister Erna Nussbaum also found refuge there with her non-Jewish husband. They returned to Troisdorf near Cologne after the war. Karola Bernauer went on to marry the concentration camp survivor Kurt Metzger.