She was the youngest child of nine children to a Polish Jewish family in Krakow, Poland.
She survived the Holocaust in Poland during World War II. She was interred at Plaszow Labour Camp outside Krakow; Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland; Wloclawek (Leslau in German); Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen in Germany.
She married British army liberator, Norman Turgel, six months after her liberation from the camps.
She lives in London, England with her three children and eight grandchildren. She also have three great-grandchildren.
She was awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2000 Queen's Honours List for her services to the Holocaust Foundation.
Her wedding dress made of parachute silk is now at the Imperial War Museum in London. She cared for Anne Frank in a hospital at Bergen-Belsen.