Daniel and Laura Schwarzwald sit on a beach in Zaleszczyki, Poland, 1935

This prewar photo shows newly married Daniel and Laura (née Litwak) Schwarzwald enjoying a day on the beach in Zaleszczyki, Poland (today Zalishchyky, Ukraine). The Schwarzwalds were Jews from Lwów. They married in 1935 and lived in a fashionable Lwów district where Jews were a minority. Both Laura and Daniel pursued university educations and spoke Polish, Russian, German, and Yiddish. Daniel also spoke English. At the time of their marriage, Daniel was a successful businessman. He owned a lumber exporting company. After the Soviet Union occupied Lwów in 1939, Soviet authorities seized Daniel's business.

The Germans occupied Lwów in 1941. The Schwarzwalds and their young daughter, Selma, were forced into a ghetto along with thousands of other Jewish people. Hoping to escape the ghetto, Daniel bought false identity papers for his family. Daniel, however, was killed before they could leave. Laura and Selma managed to escape in 1942. They fled to Busko-Zdrój, a Polish resort town. There, they lived under assumed Polish Christian identities. Laura’s language skills were key to their survival. Her fluency in German allowed her to work as an interpreter for the German authorities. Her fluency in Polish made their assumed identities seem plausible.