Born Jane Hartmann in Liverpool , England on September 26 , 1900 , her parents were from Germany and returned there when she was still a young child . She had no siblings and was orphaned in early childhood . At the age of seven she was sent to foster parents , who changed her name to Gertrud Luckner . In the 1920s she returned to England to study at Woodbrooke , the Quaker college in Birmingham . During the holidays she worked in the slums as a hospital almoner . She also studied at Konigsberg . and at the universities of Frankfurt and Freiburg , where she obtained her doctorate in 1938 . Her dissertation was on “ Self-help Among the Unemployed in England and in Wales Based on English History of Ideas and Economics . ” Upon the death of her adoptive parents , Gertrud moved to Freiburg . A pacifist , she joined the German Catholics ' Peace Association and when the Nazis came to power in 1933 , she worked freelance with the Catholic aid organisation Caritas , in Freiburg , where she arranged exit opportunities for Jews . Under the direction of Caritas President Benedict Kreutz , Caritas expanded its activities . Raised a Quaker , in 1934 she was received into the Roman Catholic Church . Each week she collected the foreign newspapers discarded by the university library in order to read the news that was not being reported in German papers . Among German Catholic laity , Luckner was among the first to sense the genocidal inclinations of the Hitler regime and to attempt national action . After Kristallnacht , on the night of November 9 , 1938 , when Jewish businesses , synagogues and homes were burned all over Germany , Gertrud cycled round Freiburg , visiting Jewish neighbours in friendship and solidarity . Luckner began to work full-time at the head office of the German Association of Catholic Charitable Organizations , “ Caritas . ” Using international contacts , she secured safe passage abroad for many refugees . She organized aid circles for Jews , assisted many to escape , sent food parcels and clothing to internees , founded addresses where Jews could hide and worked with the priests Bernhard Lichtenberg and Alfred Delp
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Gertrud Luckner