Dorothea Neff was an actor at Cologne’s Schauspielhaus theater, where in 1934 she met Lilli Wolff, who ran a fashion studio. The two women became friends and later a couple.
In October 1938, Wolff had to leave her own business because she was Jewish. From 1939 Dorothea Neff worked at the Deutsches Volkstheater in Vienna. Lilli Wolff initially lived with her friend, without registering at the address. When Wolff was to be deported in October 1941, Neff hid her in her apartment. She spread rumors that Lilli Wolff had died by suicide.
To prevent strangers being billeted into Neff’s apartment, two former colleagues of Wolff’s moved in during the fall of 1944.
In September 1944, all Vienna’s theaters were closed down. Dorothea Neff had to work in a factory where shirts and uniform clothing was made.
Lilli Wolff remained in hiding in Dorothea Neff’s apartment until their liberation on April 9, 1945. The three and a half years since she went underground had been a time of hunger and constant fear of discovery, for both women.
The Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem honored Dorothea Neff as Righteous Among the Nations in 1979.