Although born in New York City, Eva Rosenfeld spent her youth in Berlin where her father Theodor Rosenfeld was a theater producer, one of the members of the Freie Bühne theatre. When Eva was 15 years old, her father died and she left school to begin her career as a social worker. In 1911 she married her cousin, the lawyer Valentin Rosenfeld (1886–1970). Valentin studied in Vienna and attended the lectures held by Freud. Through her husband, Eva first became aware of psychoanalysis. When they married, they settled in Vienna.
