Anita Lasker was born in 1925 in Breslau, the daughter of a lawyer father and a violinist mother.

She attended school until 1941, but could not graduate because in the fall of that year she was drafted to work in a paper factory. There she had to stick labels on rolls of toilet paper. At the paper factory she made contact with French prisoners of war, whom she helped, together with her sister Renate, to forge leave certificates. This was discovered after some time, and in the fall of the following year she and her sister were arrested while trying to escape to France.

She was imprisoned in Breslau. She was sentenced to a long prison term, which she never served, as she was transferred to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in the fall of 1943.

She was forced to play in the camp orchestra. After the orchestra was disbanded, she was forced to work as a knitter. She remained in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp until the evacuation to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She only vaguely remembers the chaos at the end of the war and the forced labor there. She had to work in a weaving mill for a while.

After liberation, she waited in the Bergen-Belsen DP camp for permission to emigrate, which was subject to numerous legal delays. Finally, she went to Brussels with her sister, hoping to speed up the process, but this resulted in more months of waiting.

In March 1946, the long-awaited emigration to Great Britain was finally arranged. She stayed with relatives and threw herself into resuming her musical career. She received a good cello education and performance opportunities.

It was not until 1951, with the acquisition of British citizenship, that she was able to work legally as a cellist in England. She married the pianist Peter Wallfisch in 1952.

She was one of the founders of the English Chamber Orchestra and performed throughout the world.

She has two children; her son is a musician and lecturer in Germany and her daughter is a psychotherapist living in England.

Music was and is the determining factor in her life; it was the passion of her youth, saved her in the concentration camp and later gave her an artistic career. Since the death of her husband in 1993, she lives alone in her house. She is very active in Holocaust education and speaks to young people about her experiences.