In early 1944, the Nazis took over the occupation and in April, Flora’s brother, parents, grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins were arrested in the middle of the night and transported to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

Close to five thousand evacuees in Botton's group were abandoned at Magdeburg where they were discovered by a Ninth United States Army soldier on patrol on 13 April.

[5] Cared for by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the Botton family was evacuated in the summer of 1945 to Brussels, Belgium.

[1][4] After three months in a refugee camp, they were sent to Marseille, France, and continued on to Bari, Italy, finally arriving back in Athens in October.

That year at the end of the school term, the family moved to Mexico City, motivated by post-war tensions in Greece.

Furthering her education, Botton moved to Paris and studied European history and Spanish literature for a year at the Sorbonne.

[8] Funded by UNESCO the program was initially taught by visiting scholars from around the world with the plan to replace the teaching staff with Mexicans once they were trained.

[12] The 5th International Congress on Chinese Studies, hosted in March 2020, was held in her honor, recognizing her pioneering role in the field.

Her preliminary works dealt with Chinese philosophy, but she moved into studies of history and then contemporary cultural and social issues.