Erna Dubnack lived in Berlin-Charlottenburg and worked for Siemens. Her husband Werner Dubnack was drafted at the beginning of the war and remained a soldier until 1945.
In January 1943, Erna Dubnack’s Jewish friend Hildegard Naumann had to go underground, after her sister had been deported to Auschwitz. Dubnack took her into her apartment, where she lived with her young son and two sub-tenants. Fearing the boy might say the wrong thing, they pretended “Aunt Hilde” only visited during the day and did not stay overnight.
In August 1943 the building was hit by an air raid. Dubnack was allocated a new apartment, which her sub-tenants also moved into. She now shared a room with her son and Naumann. In March 1945, as the situation grew ever more dangerous, Dubnack asked a colleague to take in a “bombed-out friend,” and paid her to do so. She shared her sparse food rations with her friend until the end of the war.
Erna Dubnack was honored as an Unsung Hero by the West Berlin senate in 1965.