The Jewish seamstress Alice Löwenthal lived with her children from her first marriage, Ruth and Brigitte Süssmann, in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg. Her husband was arrested in February 1943 and deported to Auschwitz. A neighbor urged Alice Löwenthal to hide with her children. They first stayed with Luise Nickel in Strausberg near Berlin. When that became too dangerous, Löwenthal took the girls to Weimar in June 1943. However, the acquaintance she intended to seek out there pretended not to be at home. In a guesthouse, she was approached by a former police officer, Walter Schmidt, and eventually revealed her situation to him. Schmidt took the children to stay with his cousin Elly Möller.
Relieved, Alice Löwenthal returned to Berlin. She sent food ration cards to Elly Möller every month and visited the children twice. She herself found refuge with various friends and acquaintances in Berlin, including Martha and Alfred Viere, and Hedwig and Harry Sussmann; from 1944 she stayed with Luise Nickel in Strausberg again.
In the summer of 1945, she learned that her daughters had been deported in August 1944 to Auschwitz and murdered there. She married Willy Nickel in 1947.