Bartok was born Éva Márta Szőke in Kecs kemetKecskemét, Hungary to a Jewish journalist father and a Catholic mother.<ref name=AP>{{cite web| author= Associated Press |title= Eva Bartok, 72, Actress in Films of 50's and 60's|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=5 August 1998 |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/05/arts/eva-bartok-72-actress-in-films-of-50-s-and-60-s.html |access-date= 31 May 2017}}</ref><ref name=Vallance>{{cite web |last= Vallance |first= Tom |title= Obituary: Eva Bartok |publisher= [[The Independent]] |date= 3 August 1998 |url= https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-eva-bartok-1169493.html|access-date= 12 February 2020}}</ref> As a young child she performed in school productions from the age of six, and later in charity events and for wounded soldiers during the [[Second World War]].
Following the outbreak of the war her father stayed in [[Budapest]]. Bartok and her mother moved to live in Kecskemét, to the south of the city, where her mother had relatives. Her father would visit them on Sundays, but later disappeared without a trace during the Nazi period.
