Liza Schein (nee Esanu), was born in a small town near Iasi, Romania on March 26, 1928, the third of four surviving children of Chaia and Leib Esanu. Leib died in 1932 of a gall bladder attack, which could have easily been treated in hospital, but Jews were not allowed in hospitals in Romania in those times. Chaia (who later anglicized her name to Clara) was left a widow, with four children under the age of ten to raise in Depression-era Romania. Despite multiple moves, and the murder of her aunt before her very eyes, Liza and the rest of the family survived the war. Liza and her sister Shelly ended up in a displaced persons camp in Salzburg, Austria, where they both met and married their husbands. Both couples sailed to Canada in 1948. Liza and Sam Schein settled in Toronto, while Shelly and Izak Koczerginski settled in Montreal.