She was born in the nowadays Ukrainian city Chernivtsi, which until 1940 was part of Romania. Her father was Romanian and her mother was Polish. After the Red Army occupied the Chernivtsi in 1940, Margaret was separated from the family and lived in a Soviet children's home, from where she was rescued by her grandmother and transferred to Romania. Margaret's father was sent to Siberia, where he died, but her mother returned home only after several years of imprisonment in Irkutsk.