Elsbeth Raatz was a lecturer at a commercial college and lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg. At the request of a colleague, she took the Jewish sisters Alice and Charlotte Carlé into her home in early March 1943; they had just gone underground at the time. Due to a threat of denunciation by a neighbor, the sisters had to leave their hiding place one or two weeks later. Raatz gave them her passport, which was altered by the helpers’ circle formed around Franz Kaufmann.
When Kaufmann’s circle was discovered in August 1943, Alice and Charlotte Carlé were arrested in the course of the Gestapo investigations and in September 1943 were deported to Auschwitz, where they were murdered. Elsbeth Raatz was fortunate enough to escape the Gestapo’s attention.
In April 1943 Raatz took in Erna Juliusberger for two to three weeks, having previously supported her with food on numerous occasions. Juliusberger survived in various places, with the help of her “Aryan” fiancé.
Elsbeth Raatz was honored by the West Berlin senate as an Unsung Heroine in 1963.