Anna Sten was born in Romania into an upper-class family as an only child. During the Second World War she was interned at a concentration camp in Vapniarka, Romania (today Ukraine). The camp was liquidated in 1944 and the prisoners were brought to other concentration camps. The Nazis tortured her by cutting the tendons in her knees. Anna Sten lost all her family members during the Holocaust (only her father had died prior to the war). In August 1974, she obtained her diploma in psychotherapy from the University of London and later, after her immigration in 1953, she worked for the Alfred-Adler Institute in New York, with an interest in child development. All attempts to publish her manuscripts of short-stories failed. Anna Sten died in or before 1987.
From the guide to the Anna Sten Collection, 1886-1992, bulk 1970s-1990s, (Leo Baeck Institute)