Emanuel Nooitrust lived with his wife Emma and their three children in Essen, where the Jewish businessman was a travelling fabric salesman. Under the Nazis, he was initially protected from persecution by his non-Jewish wife. However, Jews living in “mixed marriages” were eventually also at risk of deportation.
Having received a summons for deportation in the fall of 1944, Nooitrust turned to his niece Berta Belgo, who contacted her non-Jewish sister-in-law and brother-in-law. Maria and Josef Otten were prepared to hide Emanuel Nooitrust in their building at Winkelsfelder Straße 14 in Düsseldorf.
Maria Otten was the air-raid warden for the building, which had been previously damaged by bombing. She could thus ensure that Nooitrust was relatively safe from being discovered in the basement. His brother Salomon Nooitrust appears to have also stayed there temporarily during the last months of the war.
After nine months, shortly before being liberated by the U.S. Army, Emanuel Nooitrust left his basement hiding place—probably so as not to endanger his helpers any longer.