Von Sacher-Masoch was born in what is now Lviv , Ukraine . His father was a Austrian police director with Spanish ancestry , and his mother was Charlotte von Masoch , a Ukrainian noblewoman . Von Sacher-Masoch was born in the city then known as Lemberg , the capital of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria , at the time a province of the Austrian Empire ( now Lviv , Ukraine ) , into the Roman Catholic family of an Austrian police director of Spanish descent and Charlotte von Masoch , a Ukrainian noblewoman .