She was born in Thessaloniki in 1937 to Sephardic Jews (descendants of Jewish refugees who were expelled from Spain in 1492 and ended up in Thessaloniki).

Lola’s family fled to Athens from Thessaloniki in January 1941, where they could better hide in the anonymity of the city. A few months after the capital fell and with the arrival of the Germans, life became very difficult. The winter of 1943 was the toughest. It was snowing and food was scarce. The world was starving and many were dying on the streets.

In April 1944, Lola and her family were put on a train for an unknown destination. People packed atop each other in a wagon, could hardly breathe, while many died en route. The train with Spanish nationals (to be exchanged for German prisoners) arrived at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, Lower Saxony.

Although Bergen-Belsen contained no gas chambers, living conditions were unbearable with people dying from starvation, overwork, disease, and toward the war’s end, a typhus epidemic. Lola’s father fell ill with the disease while she caught measles.

Lola celebrated her seventh birthday inside the camp with a piece of bread and sticks for candles. She recalls that childhood distractions kept her going.

Just before Bergen-Belsen was liberated in April 1945, Lola was taken by train to North Germany, part of a last-ditch effort by the Nazis to exterminate camp survivors before the Allies arrived.

After days of travelling, the guards abandoned the train and fled. The exhausted and starving prisoners were found by American soldiers a few hours later. Families with children were sent to spend the night in German houses in Farsleben, guarded by an American guard. On the same day, the British army liberated Bergen Belsen, where they found thousands of corpses thrown away.

After a long, exhausting route across a number of countries and refugee centers Lola and her family arrived to Bari Transit camp. From there they returned to Greece by boat. It was September 11, 1945.