Clara Isaacman (née Heller) was born in Borsa, Romania, before WWII. Due to rampant anti-Semitism, her family left Romania and moved to Antwerp, Belgium inthe late 1920s, when Clara was a child. Clara’s father, Shalom, was in the diamond business and owned a soda factory. Clara attended a Hebrew school and a publicschool in Antwerp.

Paul Engel was born into a middle-class Jewish family on May 4, 1922 in Vienna, Austria. He had a younger brother, Robert. When World War I broke out in 1914, his father, Eduard, was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army. Captured as a prisoner of war, he spent six years in Siberia working in a coal mine, finally reuniting with his family in 1920. In Vienna, Eduard owned a perfume wholesale business. Before the war, Paul attended a primary school and was accepted to a Gymnasium in the 14th district of Vienna.

Howard Cwick was born in the Bronx, New York, on August 25, 1923, to Samuel and Sarah Cwick, both Polish immigrants. Howard had an older sister, Sylvia. TheCwick family spoke both English and Yiddish, kept a kosher home, and attended synagogue three times a week. Howard went to school at P.S. 100 in the Bronx beforegoing on to Brooklyn Technical High School. When he was seven years old, Howard received his first camera and became interested in photography.