Yes, in past market crashes these have gotten clobbered as bad or worse than the S+P 500. Their subsequent recoveries were even more spectacular, but as a way to hedge against a stock market panic, they haven't worked in the initial crash stage.
This time gold is holding up better than in past crashes, likely because central banks around the world have been piling into gold as they move away from the US dollar system for trade and central bank reserves. The various alternatives to the US dollar system being created are looking to use gold either as a partial backing, or as the means to settle their quarterly / annual trade imbalances with eachother. So each country will need a considerable gold stash for this. That's what's been driving gold prices, in addition to the fact that the world price of gold is effectively now being set by China, instead of London and New York as before. Frank Giustra had some info on this in an interview last Fall -
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