Ivan Lefkovits was born in Prešov, Slovakia, as the second son of a dentist and a pharmacist. During the second wave of deportations in 1944, he was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, and later to Bergen-Belsen. He was liberated by the British Army there. He and his mother were the only members of the family to survive and return to Slovakia. His father and brother did not survive the war. In 1949, he moved to Prague and graduated from the University of Chemistry and Technology, subsequently obtaining a position at the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. In 1965, he obtained a fellowship at the International Institute of Genetics and Biophysics in Naples. Two years later, he and his wife, Hana, emigrated with their son, Michal, first to Germany and then 1969 to Switzerland. He was tasked with supervising the construction of the Roche pharmaceutical company's Institute of Immunology in Basel. He worked at the institute for 30 years. He lives in Bettingen. In 1989, he became a professor at Philipps University Marburg in Germany. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Prešov. He is actively involved in the Swiss Association for Holocaust Survivors. Among other things, he initiated the publication of a series of memory books titled 'I Live with My Past'.
