Willy Vorwalder lived with his family on the border to Switzerland. At the beginning of the war, he was working in Singen as an electrician, and was therefore exempted from military service. Via middlemen, he was asked in the spring of 1943 to help Jews escape to Switzerland. Together with his workmate Josef Höfler, Vorwalder was prepared to do so. In most cases, he collected persecuted Jews arriving from Berlin at the station in Singen and took them to Höfler, who showed them the way across the border. At the end of 1943, Vorwalder stopped helping.
After a failed escape attempt in May 1944, Willy Vorwalder was among those arrested. The Freiburg special court initially investigated the escape helpers, before the case was transferred to the “People’s Court” in Berlin. However, the trial for “aiding the enemy” no longer took place. In November 1944 Vorwalder attempted to escape from Singen prison, but failed. He and other prisoners were taken to Dachau concentration camp on April 23, 1945, and he was liberated on a death march to Tyrol in early May 1945.