Helen Lang was born in Munkacs, Czechoslovakia. Following the Hungarian annexation of the area, Helen went to work in Budapest to help support her family. While visiting her family during Pesach in 1944, the Germans came into the city and shipped Helen and her family to Auschwitz-Birkenau. After a month in Birkenau, Helen and her sister were transferred to Stutthof, where Helen was made a Blockältester. Helen and her sister were then shipped to Praust, a brand new camp, where she was a maid for the SS guards, and secured her sister as a Blockältester as well. When the Russians neared Praust the camp was evacuated and Helen, her sister, and a friend escaped the march, posing as Hungarian Gentiles. They met a group of SS doctors who took them to Denmark to stay for the duration of the war. After the war, Helen stayed in the Lübeck DP camp in Germany and moved to Prague to reunite with her family.