Born in Mashhad, Iran, to a family consisting of traders from Khorasan on her father's side and on her mother's side the family were Caucasian merchants who had settled in Mashhad. Her family moved to Hamburg, Germany, for her father's business, in 1937, and by the early 1940s they were forced to leave because of the beginnings of World War II. By 1945 her family returned to Mashhad.
