Gertraud Hagemann grew up with her family in Havelberg, a small town 60 miles (100 km) from Berlin. Her aunt Ella Friedlieb also lived in their household. In Berlin, where Gertraud’s father Gerhard worked as an auditor in the episcopal ordinariate, he met the Jewish businessman Jacob Kahane. The latter had to go into hiding with his wife Lina in the fall of 1942; at the end of February 1943 their daughter Jenny had to join them. When their quarters were hit during an air raid in November 1943, the devout Catholic Hagemanns took the Kahane family into their home temporarily.
Thanks to Gerhard Hagemann’s help, Jacob Kahane was able to pose in Havelberg as a “bombed-out Berliner” who had lost his papers and belongings. He and his family then received “Aryan” identity papers and food ration cards. They were also allocated a replacement home very close to the Hagemanns. After their liberation, the Kahanes returned to Berlin.
In 1994 Gertraud Arnold, as she was called after her marriage, her family, and Ella Friedlieb were honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem.