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Janine Chasseguet-Smirgel was born in Paris of immigrant parents from Russia (on her mother's side) and Poland. Her paternal grandparents, who were extremely poor, had twelve children, three of whom died at an early age. Their youngest son, Moniek, enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and was killed in action in France during World War I. Their eldest son, Adolf, studied medicine in Paris and specialized in psychiatry, working with the eminent psychiatrist Henri Claude. In 1907 he wrote an article in French published in the Revue de Neurologie discussing Freud's work on defense mechanisms. He left for Russia in 1920 and ultimately settled in Poland. Their eldest daughter, Anne, also studied medicine in Paris, specializing in the treatment of tuberculosis. This beloved and admired aunt helped to partially replace Dr. Chasseguet-Smirgel's ailing mother who was afflicted with a serious illness. Another daughter, Nina, sang at the court in Tsarist Russia prior to marrying an American on a mission to that country and subsequently emigrating to the United States.
The maternal grandparents lived in more comfortable circumstances. The Russian Revolution, however, brought these to an end, and Dr. Chasseguet-Smirgel's grandfather ended his life blind, selling shoelaces on the streets of Moscow. Her mother's youngest brother, Elek, was imprisoned in the Tsarist jails for his political opinions and later became editor-in-chief of Pravda for several years after the Revolution. He died in great poverty under Stalin. The eldest brother, Jacob, emigrated to Poland where he founded a family and