Laron was born on February 7, 1927, to a Jewish family in the Bukovinian city of Cernăuţi (Chernivtsi), then in Romania (now in Ukraine). At the age of 6, he moved with his family to another Bukovinian town, Rădăuți. Following the June 1941 invasion of the USSR by Nazi Germany, Romania allied itself with Nazi Germany and regained Northern Bukovina (which had been annexed by the USSR in 1940), the 14 years old child and his family were deported to the concentration camps of Transnistria. There he had the chance to survive as a worker in a factory, which was founded in Mogilev by his uncle, Siegfried Sami Jagendorf (1885–1970), in order to save as many Jewish deportees as possible. Accordingly, Laron became a licensed iron turner.