Gloria was born in 1930 in Nagy Bereg, Czechoslovakia. On the last day of Passover in 1944, Gloria and her family were rounded up and brought to a brick factory which served as a ghetto. Three weeks later, they were deported to Auschwitz. In an astonishing escape, Gloria was able to jump off a truck which would have carried her to her death in the gas chamber. Subsequently, she was transferred to six additional camps, and was finally rescued by the Swedish Red Cross.
Gloria was an active Holocaust educator, the subject of a documentary film, and wrote a book about her life, Mommy, What’s That Number On Your Arm?.