Berlowitz was born in Elbing, Germany, in 1929. Her parents were Heimann and Gertrud. Her mother was Jewish but her father was a Christian. She was in a children's home in Hannover.
Berlowitz was taken to the Theresienstadt ghetto in Czechoslovakia, with her two brothers, on 16 March 1942 on a transport from Berlin. She was liberated there by the Red Army on 8 May 1945.