Lotte Paepcke, a Jewish law graduate, was married to the Protestant philologist Dr. Ernst Paepcke. Her marriage gave her temporary protection from deportation, but she had to perform forced labor in Leipzig. When her situation became increasingly dangerous in 1942, she fled to her birthplace of Freiburg and lived illegally in various hiding places. With the help of her Catholic friend Grete Borgmann, she eventually found refuge in St. Vinzentius Hospital.
When the building was hit during a severe air raid on the center of Freiburg on November 27, 1944, Paepcke was able to escape through a basement window. Borgmann then turned for help to Heinrich Middendorf, the rector of the nearby Stegen monastery. The priest had Lotte Paepcke and her son Peter brought to the monastery the next day. Paepcke worked as a gardener there to disguise her identity, while her son was made an altar boy to pass him off as a Catholic. They both remained in the monastery until the arrival of French troops on April 23, 1945.