The Catholic theologian Josef Gülden joined the Oratory of Saint Philipp Neri, a community of priests at the Church of Our Lady in the Lindenau district of Leipzig, in 1934. On November 13, 1938, the priest forcefully condemned the violence during the anti-Jewish pogrom in his sermon.
Around 1937, Gerda Gottschalk, classified “half-Jewish” by the Nuremberg laws, started work as Gülden’s secretary. In October 1941 she and her sister Helga were arrested for failing to wear the yellow star. Gerda Gottschalk was taken to the Riga ghetto on January 21, 1942 and later to Stutthof concentration camp. From there, she was deployed as a laborer on the Gerbrandt family farm in the nearby village of Steegen in August 1944. Fearing she would be taken back to Stutthof, she asked Gülden for help in a letter. Her former employer contacted Stephan Pfürtner, a young soldier from Danzig. He enabled Gottschalk to escape on November 11, 1944, and took her to stay with his family; she survived.
In 2019 a plaque was installed in Leipzig commemorating the three oratory members Josef Gülden, Theodor Gunkel, and Werner Becker.