Elisabeth Schwerdfeger worked for Siemens in Berlin from 1934. She was opposed to National Socialism, as was the police sergeant Georg Bruns, whom she married in 1939. Their two children were born in 1941 and 1942. Georg Bruns supported his Jewish friend Adolf Rosen’s family, but was unable to prevent his deportation to the Theresienstadt ghetto in November 1942.
Adolf Rosen’s daughters Elsbeth Rosen and Hildegard Cohn fled from their parents’ Charlottenburg apartment on January 7, 1943, and Elisabeth and Georg Bruns took them in. Hildegard Cohn and her five-year-old son were picked up a few days later, however, and deported to Auschwitz.
The Bruns family home in the Steglitz district was destroyed in an air raid on March 1, 1943. They found new quarters in Charlottenburg, taking Elsbeth Rosen with them. When this building was also hit by a bomb in November 1943, Elisabeth Bruns left Berlin with the children. She left her employment record booklet for Elsbeth Rosen, who survived the war living with Georg Bruns.
In 1961 Elisabeth and Georg Bruns were honored as Unsung Heroes by the West Berlin senate.