Gerhard used her international contacts, networking with women from Quaker circles, and invoked contacts in the "Bundesrat" and at the League of Nations. She also lobbied personally , Switzerland's long-standing federal (nationwide) head of . In each case, she put the case for the refugees, most particularly for the child refugees. A particular case in point came in the aftermath of the "November pogrom" in 1938, when Gerhard and succeeded in obtaining a special permit in respect of 300 Jewish children from Frankfurt, Konstanz and one or two other towns in southern Germany near the Swiss border at Basel, the so-called "300-Kinder-Aktion". The children arrived in January 1939, their number increased beyond the 300 quota by children from the border region in fear for their lives. Some of the official bodies that had agreed to the admission of the 300 now refused admission to any of the children, and a number had to be smuggled illegally across the border. Georgine Gerhard's initial reaction was to run to the press and have the responsible officials and politicians shamed, but in the end the cooler counsels of her colleagues prevailed, and the necessary negotiations with the various authorities involved were concluded "behind the scenes". Possibly as a reflection of the international situation, plans had been made for this batch of 300 children to stay in Switzerland for six months rather than the two or three months that had become the norm with earlier batches looked after by the . Thanks to the outbreak of war, in which the countries to the north and west of Switzerland were participants from September 1939, for most of the children involved the six month stay in Switzerland became a six year live-saving stay.