Chava's mother died when she was 2, and Chava went to live with her grandfather, who was a rabbi in the village of Matsiov. Her grandfather's second wife welcomed Chava. After first studying at a Polish public school, Chava attended a Jewish day school. When Chava was a teenager her adopted grandmother died, and Chava took over managing her grandfather's household until he remarried.

1933-39: My grandfather's third wife was an unsympathetic woman. After she came to our home, I wanted to be independent and learn a trade, but my grandfather opposed this. I immersed myself in activities of the Young Pioneers, a Zionist organization, where I met Yakov Biber, whom I married in 1939. Our plans for the future were destroyed that year in the fall when the Soviets occupied eastern Poland.