Elizabeth B. Walter was born in Karlsdorf, Yugoslavia. She spent almost three years in Communist Yugoslavian concentration camps AFTER World War II. Why? Because she was an ethnic German. She and her family escaped on foot across Hungary to Austria. The family was reunited with her father in bombed out Munich, Germany. In 1950 the family emigrated to America.

On September 8th 1998 Ms. Walter received the prestigious American Legion Auxiliary 1998 Woman of the Year award for sharing her personal story of survival in the face of physical and emotional suffering, by writing the book Barefoot in the Rubble, to inform the public about the inhumanity of post-war ethnic cleansing that continues to this day!