Robert Bober was born in Berlin in 1931 to Jewish parents of Polish origin. In 1933 the family flees Nazism and takes refuge in France. Thanks to an early warning, the family managed to avoid the Velodrome d'Hiver roundup of July 1942, where many Jews were killed or deported. At 16, he began an apprenticeship as a tailor and made a living that way until the age of 22 when he turned to pottery. During his summer vacations he spent time with children who had lost their families during the Second World War.