Larry Lesser was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1931. His birth name was Eliezer Lazarowic, and he was known by the Polish nickname Lolek as a child. His father, Berril Lazarowic was a butcher and store owner, and his mother Cyla raised Larry along with a younger brother, Miatek, born 1936, and an older sister, Mina, born 1930. Miatek, along with Larry’s parents, tragically died during the Holocaust. Mina, like Larry, was also a Holocaust survivor who lived in America and stayed in touch with Larry their entire lives.

Larry was born on Nowolipki 62 street, a Jewish neighborhood of Warsaw, which was incorporated into the Warsaw Ghetto when it was formed in 1940 during the German occupation of Poland following the 1939 invasion. Larry recalled a comfortable childhood prior to 1939, but he was still targeted by antisemitic Polish kids who bullied him in school. Larry developed negative feelings about school, because he faced harassment simply for being Jewish. Larry’s mother, Cyla, kept a kosher home; as an Orthodox Jew from Russia, she was more religious than the rest of his family. Despite being less observant than his mother, Larry’s father, Berrill, was still targeted by antisemitic Poles who vandalized his stores.

The German invasion and formation of the Warsaw Ghetto would forever change Larry’s life; personal tragedies and a complete ban on religious practice, forced starvation, and murder in the streets became the new normal for life inside the Ghetto. Larry and his family survived by using Larry to smuggle food and supplies into the Ghetto day by day, maintaining this until 1943 when Jews inside the ghetto staged an uprising lasting for 29 days; in response, the Nazis destroyed the ghetto and killed or deported all the remaining Jews. Although Larry and Mina escaped after the uprising, their parents and brother were deported to various camps where they perished.

After WW2 and the end of the Holocaust, Larry became a refugee who spent time in orphanages and Displaced Persons (DP) Camps across Poland and Germany, before spending a significant amount of time in Camp 65 in Cyprus. From there he ended up in France at an orphanage before boarding a refugee ship to Palestine. Although the ship was refused entry by the British for a time, Larry eventually made it across the border. There, he sought connection by living in several kibbutzim and by joining the Hagannah and later the IDF and the Israeli Merchant Marines. He served in the Merchant Marines for 11 years, eventually rising to the rank of Captain. It was during a sojourn in the United States that he met his first wife Frances Chosak. He moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1960 to be with her.

Life for Larry in the U.S. was incredibly difficult; while he had just married Frances, he wasn’t able to speak much English which made finding work almost impossible, and what work he did find paid very little and left him exhausted, with little time to spend with his daughter, Sharon, who was born in 1961. After several hard years, Larry purchased a house off Bellaire Avenue in North Hollywood in 1963. Sadly, this comfort was short-lived, as Frances died unexpectedly in 1964, leaving Larry to raise two daughters on his own.

Larry met Sonya Braverman in the 1980s. Although they fell in love quickly, they didn’t marry until a decade later. Larry hid much of his trauma from the Holocaust and struggled greatly with PTSD and depression for his entire life. Despite this, he had a successful career as a manager at Waterproof Paint Company in Baltimore, where he worked for 21 years before retiring. Soon after his retirement, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, which motivated him and Sonya to take a trip back to Poland; the story of their experience there became the basis for Sonya Braverman’s book "A Lullaby in the Blood." Larry passed away in 2014—leaving behind a legacy of love and strength in times of great adversity.