David Hamilton was born David Zwingerman in Berlin on 24 September 1923 to Abraham Zwingerman and Paula Vortefflisch. He was in Berlin at the time of the November 1938 pogrom when their synagogue at Markgraf-Albrecht-Strasse was burned. On 10 November 1938, Zwingerman and his younger friend Horst Löwenstein discovered 12 undamaged Torah scrolls which had been stored within the Torah ark and had been protected from the fire by its thick oak doors. Zwingerman later wrote to Hermann Simon that they took the scrolls into the street: "Nazis in uniform, supporters and onlookers, were on the steps, the sidewalk, and in the street ... I tried to hail a taxi and managed to get one. Luckily, the driver, a White Russian by birth, was willing to take the Torah scrolls". Zwingerman's mother arranged for the scrolls to be stored with a Jewish tea importer from England; they were later returned to the local congregation.