Following the November pogroms of 1938 the director of the orphanage, Kurt Crohn succeeded in saving the lives of many children by the means of kindertransports to the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, among these was Leslie Baruch Brent. The orphanage was forcibly closed in 1940 and the last residents were put into concentration camps in 1942. Between 1943 and 1945 the building was used by SS-Reichssicherheitshauptamt for its central endorsement department ().