Born Anna-Regina Szternfinkiel in Lublin on 2 January 1920, she was the only child of Polish-Jewish parents. When she turned 17, she married Jakub Rajs, and they traveled to Belgium in 1938 to attend the Ecole Polytechnique de Verviers. They intended to become textile engineers so that they could manage her parents' factory. In 1939, they traveled back to Poland for a vacation, but soon it was occupied. The couple and their parents were forcibly sent to the Lublin Ghetto and then the Warsaw Ghetto. She escaped the Warsaw Ghetto with her husband, and they survived by using false identities, later joining the Polish Resistance. They were arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, who killed Jakub Rajs by gunshot. She was relocated to multiple prisons and labor camps, while her parents were sent to death camps. She was held at a political prison in Schröttersburg (Płock) until the country was liberated in March 1945.