The Jewish teacher Rose Ollendorff was only allowed to work at a Jewish private school from 1934. She met her fellow teacher Käte Laserstein there shortly later. From November 1941 Ollendorff had to perform forced labor for Siemens. When she received notice of her deportation in January 1942, she went underground. She was initially able to hide with her partner Käte, who lived with her mother in Berlin-Steglitz.
However, on July 13, 1942, Käte Laserstein also had to go underground. After various hiding places together, Ollendorff stayed until the end of the war in a primitive unheated garden house in the Wilmersdorf district. It belonged to her former teacher Gertrud Kopitsch, who also provided her with food. Without Kopitsch’s knowledge, Ollendorff also housed Käte Laserstein and her former partner Lucie Friedländer in the shed.
In February 1945 the three Jewish women found refuge with Elisabeth Wust, whom they had met in a restaurant. Wust claimed to the neighbors that they were “bombed-out cousins from Frankfurt.” They experienced liberation together. In November 1945 Rose Ollendorff was finally able to return to teaching.