Helena Hochberg grew up in a Jewish family in the Polish town of Królewska Huta (now Chorzów). She learned several languages, including German.
After the German invasion of Poland, she was forced to work in a factory. In 1942 she was put in a forced labor camp in Grünberg (now Zielona Góra), which became a sub-camp of a concentration camp in 1944. The prisoners were sent on death marches on January 19, 1945. Hochberg managed to escape south of Berlin, hid in a silo, and eventually made her way to Gebersdorf near Dahme. Posing as a German war refugee, she asked the local mayor for help. She was taken to the pastor’s wife Dorothea Thiel, a member of the Confessional Church. Though Hochberg did not know this, Thiel had previously hidden several escaped Jews in her home. Hochberg revealed her true identity to her, was able to stay, and was nursed back to health.
In August 1945 she returned to Poland, where she searched for her family but could not find them. In October 1946 she left Europe with the help of an organization that smuggled Jews to Palestine against the regulations of the British mandate authorities. Her ship was intercepted and she was placed in British internment. Released in 1947, she settled in Petah Tikva.