Born in Hamburg, she was the eldest daughter of a prominent Jewish physician, David Assur, who converted to Christianity upon marriage to her Lutheran-raised mother, and changed his name to Assing [REF].
After the deaths of their parents and the Great Fire of Hamburg in 1842, Assing and her sister Ludmilla went to live with their uncle, the prominent literary figure and revolutionary activist, Karl August Varnhagen von Ense.