Harold George Lawrence was born Hans Georg Lewinneck in Gerdauen, East Prussia, in 1910. As a child, he briefly moved to Berlin, before settling in Rastenburg, where his grandfather lived. Hans's father bought and sold horses. Hans left the Gymnasium to apprentice in haberdashery and worked in a large store in Königsberg. In 1938 the Nazis closed the Jewish-owned store. Hans started looking for a way to leave Germany. He found a place on a train from Berlin with other young Jews and then travelled by ship from Ostend to Dover. He was sent to Kitchener Camp, where he worked as a roofer.

Hans then joined the Pioneer Corps, achieving the rank of sergeant. He crossed into Normandy three days after D-Day and served as an interpreter in occupied Berlin. After the war, he moved with his family to Buenos Aires, where his sister had settled. Six years later the family relocated to Oakland, California, to join his wife's cousins, who had gone there from Shanghai. Harold died in 1991.