Eric Schwab was born in Hamburg in 1910. He was the son of a Frenchman and a German woman who were persecuted and deported during the Nazi regime because of their Jewish origin. Supposedly he came to Paris in the 1930s, where he worked as a photographer and reporter. In 1939 he was drafted into military service. After the Battle of Dunkirk in June 1940 he was interned by the Germans, but managed to escape after a few weeks while on a train packed with prisoners and bound for Germany. He returned to Paris, where he began working as a photographer again. He joined the French Resistance. The research of Annette Wierviorka next locates him near the Loire River in 1944, fighting with the French Forces of the Interior as the Resistance was then known. Due to the Jewish origins of his mother he had to be very cautious and had to hide from Nazis which had anti-Jewish laws implemented also in occupied France. His mother was deported to Theresienstadt in 1943.