Gertrud Prochownik worked for the Berlin Jewish Community until April 13, 1943, and then went underground to evade her imminent deportation. An acquaintance, Elisabeth Zimmermann, took the Jewish widow to Maria Kletzin that same day. Kletzin and her husband ran a farm in Päwesin near Rathenow, around 30 miles (50 km) west of Berlin.
Prochownik, to whom Zimmermann had given false papers in the name of Hildegard Jacobi, worked in the house or garden there, with other employees. Maria Kletzin could not cope with the pressure in the long run, so Gertrud Prochownik had to leave Päwesin in November 1944. The Kletzins arranged for her to stay at their friends Johanna and Lothar Kreyssig’s farm in nearby Hohenferchesar. There too, “Hildegard Jacobi” worked in the household.
After her liberation in May 1945, Gertrud Prochownik returned to Berlin and had to spend several weeks in the Jewish Hospital due to the strain she had been through. In 1946 she moved to England to join her daughter Marianne. They emigrated to Australia for a time, but returned to England in 1962.