The kindergarten teacher Liselotte Pereles had to give up her job in 1933 because she was Jewish. From 1934, she ran a daycare center for the Jewish Community in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Around 1942, she became the guardian of Susanne Manasse. The Jewish girl’s mother had died and her father had fled abroad after being held in a concentration camp.
Liselotte Pereles was initially deferred for deportation due to her social work for the Jewish Community, but she was in constant danger of losing this protection. The Quaker Elisabeth Abegg urgently advised Pereles to go into hiding with the child.
Pereles was in fact arrested at her workplace on February 1, 1943. She managed to escape the assembly camp and contact Elisabeth Abegg, who took her to her former student and fellow activist Hildegard Knies. Susanne Manasse was taken to her non-Jewish aunt.
Lieselotte Pereles lived under the false name of Lore Koch for two years. She had to change her quarters on many occasions. During the final months before her liberation, she lived in the home of the sisters Elisabeth and Julie Abegg. She remained close friends with Elisabeth Abegg for the rest of her life.