The daughter of a Jewish doctor, Eva Rosenfeld studied medicine in Berlin and became a neurologist. From 1941 she was only allowed to treat Jewish patients. At the end of 1942 she went underground to evade deportation.
Presumably through Margarete Sommer, the head of the aid office at the Berlin Episcopal Ordinariate, Eva Rosenfeld sought out Father Theodor Gunkel in Leipzig. He found her a place of refuge and obtained identity papers from a Catholic woman in Berlin for her. She appears to have had to change her hiding place several times. In constant fear of endangering her helpers, Eva Rosenfeld committed suicide using barbital in January 1944.
The Gestapo apparently found evidence with her body pointing to her sister Lizzi Buttermilch’s hiding place in the Catholic Women’s Association House in Berlin. Gunkel was able to warn the director of the house, which saved the life of Eva Rosenfeld’s sister.