Sacha Moldovan was born into a Jewish family on November 4, 1901 in Kishinev, the capital city of the Republic of Moldavia in Southern Russia. He was named Aloysha by his father and nicknamed "Sacha."

From 1902 - 1913, Moldovan spent his childhood in Czarist Russia. His mother, Bonia, ran a wine bar, where Sacha habitually sat and listened to the villagers' conversations. Bonia, a painter herself, encouraged Sacha to draw and paint and gave him his first set of paints.

From 1914 - 1915, under the triple threat of the Russian Revolution, World War I, and the Russian Pogroms (organized massacres of Jews), Sacha and his family emigrated to the United States and they settled in New York City's lower East Side. His name becam...