Switzerland avoided direct participation in the Second World War, as it had in the First. Nevertheless, with effect from June 1940, all the surrounding countries were actively involved as belligerents; and neutral Switzerland was deeply impacted in all sorts of ways. Early in 1940 the joined up with the "Schweizerischen Arbeitsgemeinschaft für kriegsgeschädigte Kinder" (SAK) which had grown up out of the need to look after children orphaned by the Spanish Civil War. In 1942 the resulting combination was rebranded as . Till the end of the war Georgine Gerhard continued to work within the organisation as a frontline organiser of support for refugee children arriving from abroad. Between 1939 and 1945 looked after approximately a further 5,000 Jewish child refugees, most of whom had entered Switzerland illegally. During this period the SHEK was running its own children's homes, and in 1944 it created its own "National Homes Commission" ("Zentrale Heimkommission"), over which Georgine Gerhard presided. Towards the end of the war it became an increasing priority to find new destinations and homelands for all the refugee children. Gerhard herself would remain in close contact with many of her former refugee children for the rest of her life. She was a co-founder of what became the interdenominational "Kiriat Yearim Swiss children's village" just outside Jerusalem, and in 1948 was able to visit former refugee children in Israel in person. She followed through with a visit in 1964 to the other country where many if the refugee children had ended up, the United States.