The Jewish dressmaker Chawa Berman moved from Warsaw to Berlin in 1919. Separated from her husband, she lived in the Mitte district with her three children. On February 27, 1943, Berman, who had to perform forced labor, managed to escape the Gestapo with the aid of Polish workers. She wanted to ask her former colleague Clara Donath for help. However, when she knocked at her door in Petershagen near Berlin, there was nobody home. The neighbor Lydia Hocke told her Donath had died and her daughter Elvira Neumann was traveling. Berman was able to stay in Clara Donath’s house, for which Lydia Hocke had a key. After a while, Elvira Neumann also agreed to Berman going into hiding in her house.
Lydia Hocke managed to prevent soldiers being billeted in the house, and her granddaughter made occasional trips to Berlin to get hold of food. The Red Army liberated Petershagen on April 21, 1945, and Berman identified herself in Russian as a Jewish survivor, which protected other people from violence. In 1946 Chawa Berman was able to join her daughter in England.