Aronson's mother family came from Łódź. After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, they first moved from Łódź to Warsaw. After a few days, they decided to move further east to the Kresy, where near Równo their relatives owned some land. However, in the meantime the Soviet Union also invaded Poland as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Treaty between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, and the relatives were arrested by the NKVD and deported eastwards, deep within the Soviet Union. As a result, the family tried to unsuccessfully enter Lithuania, and then into Romania. Eventually they wound up in Soviet-occupied Lwow. According to Aronson, in Lwow, the Soviets pressured Poles, Ukrainians and Jews to sign up for the Komsomol but he personally refused.