After the attempt on the life of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, 12,000 men of the Czech intelligentsia were shot in a retaliatory action on June 11, 1942, among them Dr. Hans Hoffmann.

Pavel's mother, with the help of non-Jewish friends, tried to save her son and herself from deportation. Pavel's grandmother, who lived in the Hungarian part of Czechoslovakia divided in the Munich Agreement, traveled to Prague with all her savings. She wanted to persuade the Hungarian embassy to issue Hungarian passports for Else and Pavel Hoffmann. However, this plan failed because of the pressure exerted on the embassy by the police.