Riva Šefere lived in Riga with her parents Maria and Salman Šefers and her younger brother Samuil. The German Wehrmacht occupied the city in July 1941, and the Jewish family had to move into the ghetto. At the beginning of December, Šefere was to be taken out of the ghetto and shot dead, along with thousands of other Riga Jews. She managed to escape from the group.
In the ghetto, Šefere performed forced labor for the occupiers. At the end of 1942 she hid outside the ghetto, mainly in the home of her uncle Mikhail Karavokyros. When Karavokyros had to leave Riga in 1943, he arranged other places for her to stay, including with his employee Valentina Sidiropoulou and a family from Finland.
From 1944, Emīlija Gajevska, her sister Marija Karčevska, and her husband Juzefs Karčevskis supported Šefere. They placed her in a vacant apartment in the center of Riga and provided her with food. When Latvian police officers searched the building, Šefere had to change her hiding place. She eventually found refuge with her brother in the home of Maria Jansen. Riva Šefere never saw her parents again.
After the war, Šefere worked in Riga as a French teacher.