Lina Fernbach ran a kosher guesthouse in the Eifel region, which she had to close under pressure from the Nazi Party in 1934. In 1940 she moved to Berlin with her husband Moses and their ten-year-old daughter Miriam; the couple had to perform forced labor there. In December 1942 they decided to go underground. While her husband found accommodation in Magdeburg, Lina Fernbach lived in various quarters, first in Grabow in Brandenburg, then in Berlin. Her daughter initially stayed with a couple in Berlin-Kaulsdorf.
Presumably at the end of 1944, Lina Fernbach moved in with Hugo und Emma Tews in Birkenwerder, followed at the beginning of 1945 by her husband. Her sister-in-law and brother-in-law were already living there illegally. The situation became particularly dangerous when Lina Fernbach needed an urgent operation. Equipped with the “Aryan” papers of a relative of the Tews, she was admitted to the St. Dominikus Hospital in Berlin-Frohnau in January 1945. She was discharged in March.
In May 1945 Miriam Fernbach returned to Berlin. She had survived the last months of the war on an estate near Greifswald. In Berlin, Moses Fernbach focused on rebuilding Jewish life. The family emigrated to Palestine in 1947.