She was born Marylise Ben Haïm in Algiers on October 10, 1928.[1] Her father was a communist who had served in the French army during the October revolution, and her mother was a musician.[1] She was raised in a non-religious household, recalling later that she was seven years old before she realized her family was Jewish.[1] In 1940, the Vichy French regime revoked the 19th century Crémieux Decree, so depriving Jewish Algerians of citizenship and resulting in Ben's expulsion from the lycée she had been attending in Algiers.[1] She briefly attended a Jewish school, but completed her education at home due to her father's opposition to Zionism.[1]