Isa Gruner grew up in Hannover and Berlin. After graduating from school, she trained as a kindergarten teacher at the Pestalozzi Fröbel House in Berlin. She then completed training as a social welfare worker at Anna von Gierke’s school for social education, becoming friends with the founder. Gruber went on to work in Guben from 1922 and returned to Berlin in 1927.
In 1933 Anna von Gierke was removed from all her posts due to her Jewish origins. Isa Gruner then took over the management of Gierke’s rural home for young people in Finkenkrug. She hid several persecuted Jewish children in the home. Aided by Quakers, some of these children were taken to safety in Britain with kindertransports.
Isa Gruner also became the guardian of a Jewish girl hiding in Finkenkrug, Christa Schmey, whose mother was murdered in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1942. Christa Schmey survived.
After the Second World War, Isa Gruner expanded the home in Finkenkrug. She left the home, by then located in the GDR, for West Berlin in 1950. She continued her work in social education there.
