Auguste Bērziņa lived with her 13-year-old son Juris in a rented apartment in the Latvian capital of Riga. The German Wehrmacht occupied the city at the end of June 1941, meaning Riga’s Jews were now subject to persecution. In the fall of 1941, Zāra Frenkel knocked at Bērziņa’s door and asked her for help. She was a Jewish woman who had just escaped from the Riga ghetto. Auguste Bērziņa knew Frenkel from before the war.
Although Bērziņa did not have a permanent job, she decided to help Frenkel. After a few days, Frenkel’s sister Regīna Rudina also came to her. Auguste Bērziņa could not hide them both in her home at the same time. She therefore asked her friends Emīlija and Edgar Ozols to take in Regīna Rudina, and the couple agreed. Zāra Frenkel lived with Auguste Bērziņa until the Red Army arrived in Riga in October 1944. She never left the apartment. Every time someone knocked at the door, Frenkel hid underneath the bed.
After the war, Zāra Frenkel remained friends with Auguste Bērziņa and her son. Auguste Bērziņa and Juris Bērziņš were honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem in 2010.