Walter Kurzweil was born on January 30, 1915, as the first child of Moses Kurzweil and Lina née Finke in Mönchsroth/Landkreis Ansbach. His father, who came from Bratislawa (then Hungary, today Slovakia), held the office of cantor and shochet in the Franconian community.

In March 1921, the then family of five - Walter's brothers Isidor and Adolf had been born in 1917 and 1920 - moved to Bad Kissingen, where Walter's father had taken over the position of cantor and shochet. The family lived here in the Jewish Community House on Promenadestrasse (then Maxstrasse 10). The children received, as Walter's brother Isidor recalled, "a certain military, albeit strictly religious, education," which can certainly be explained by the professional career of their father, who had been an officer in the Imperial and Royal Army. In August 1924, the Kurzweil family left the Franconian spa town again, because Walter's father took up a position as cantor and shochet in Treuchtlingen in the district of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen, which he held until 1938.

The family lived there in the Uhlengasse in the front building of the synagogue, which was called the "Judenschule" and was traditionally the home of the community's cantor.

The further course of Walter Kurzweil's life has so far only been partially clarified. In May 1926 he left Treuchtlingen and moved to Schwabach. He lived in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and, according to his younger brother, led a "Hachschara" there, i.e. he prepared young people in a camp for their emigration to Palestine. Presumably he also met his later wife Regina Heisler in the CSR, who came from Swaljawa in the Carpathians (now Ukraine, then Czechoslovakia). After their escape to Palestine, their son Shemuel was born in Petah Tikva/Israel in December 1943.

Walter (Eliezer) Kurzweil worked for the Jewish Settlement Police and was killed in the War of Independence in May 1948 at the age of 33. His wife Regina (Rivka) died in 1982.

Walter's brothers Isidor and Adolf also managed to escape to Palestine. His parents and youngest brother Theo, however, became victims of the Shoa.