Gitta Nagel was born on July 23, 1935 in the Netherlands to German-Jewish parents who had fled Germany hoping Holland would offer safety from the coming war. When Hitler invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, Gitta was five years old. The family's persecution began immediately, and in 1942 they narrowly escaped deportation to Mauthausen — the cattle car left without them after the Nazis failed to round up the full quota, sparing Gitta and her family on what would have been her seventh birthday.

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The family survived the remainder of the war by fabricating records that characterized Gitta's mother as Aryan, effectively disguising their Jewish identity. Still, they lived under constant threat. Her father was forced to hide in a crawl space, the family endured hunger and freezing cold, and they lived directly across the street from Gestapo headquarters. Gitta's father was imprisoned multiple times, and the family faced ongoing interrogation and violence throughout the occupation.

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After liberation, Gitta finished high school in Amsterdam. In 1950, fearing another world war with the outbreak of the Korean War, her father applied for visas and the family emigrated to the United States. Gitta studied pre-med at UCLA, where she met her husband Jack Nagel. Together they settled in California, built a successful real estate and home construction business, and devoted themselves to philanthropy – founding YULA High School, endowing scholarships, and large donations to Bar-Ilan University in Israel.