Salvator Bakolas grew up in a Jewish family in the Greek city of Ioannina.
Greece was occupied in 1941, with Ioannina inside the Italian-occupied zone. Salvator Bakolas joined the United Panhellenic Organization of Youth. He distributed flyers and painted anti-occupier slogans on walls. In 1942 he moved to Athens to attend university, where he took part in resistance activities organized by the National Liberation Front EAM. The group also gave him forged identity papers in the name of Sotirios Vekolas.
In September 1943, German troops took over the territories previously occupied by Italy, including Athens and Ioannina. Jews were now also at threat of deportation in these areas. Aided by partisans, Bakolas fled to the partisan-controlled mountains of “Free Hellas,” where he joined the Greek People’s Liberation Army ELAS. He experienced the liberation in Elefsina near Athens in the fall of 1944.
Salvator Bakolas was the only member of his family to survive. A total of 22 of his relatives were arrested on March 25, 1944, deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp, and murdered.