Elisabeth Goes and her husband, the pastor and writer Albrecht Goes, lived in Gebersheim, a village outside Leonberg near Stuttgart. They had three daughters. Albrecht Goes was drafted into the military in 1940. From 1942 to 1945, Elisabeth Goes took charge of the pastoral office and the girls’ club.
She eventually came into contact with Swabian parish houses close to the Confessional Church, which supported persecuted Jews. In the summer of 1944, Pastor Otto Mörike asked Elisabeth Goes to hide a Jewish couple, Max and Ines Krakauer. She agreed to do so. Since she often had visitors, the guests did not stand out in the village. Only the families of the farmers Gottlob and Benjamin Schwarz knew about the situation, and supported her by providing food.
The Krakauers stayed with Elisabeth Goes from August 22 to September 20, 1944. She then took them to their next hiding place in Heimerdingen. In 1945 Elisabeth Goes also hid Ella Friedemann from Berlin and another Jewish woman in her home.
Elisabeth Goes received the Federal Cross of Merit in 1979 and was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem in 1995.