In July 1941 German troops invaded Valentīna Löwenstein’s home town of Riga (Latvia). Like all Jews, the Löwenstein family were robbed of their rights and persecuted.
Valentīna Löwenstein married Dietrich Feinmanis in August 1941. The authorities registered her married name wrongly, as Freimane. Shortly after, her parents were put into the Riga ghetto. To avoid being forced to move into the ghetto themselves, Valentīna Freimane and her husband went into hiding. However, the couple were betrayed in 1942. Valentīna Freimane managed to escape but her husband was arrested.
Valentīna Freimane went underground. Her acquaintance Emīlija Gajevska found her places to hide through the Baptist community in Riga. Gajevska also provided her with food and clothing. In 1943 Gajevska found helpers between whose homes Valentīna Freimane could alternate for a year and a half in total: Marija Melnikowa and the husband and wife Charlotte and Paul Schiemann. From June 1944, she hid with the Tabaks family in the old center of Riga. When the Red Army invaded in October 1944, Valentīna Freimane was able to leave her hiding place.