Everhardus Ariëns grew up as the sixth of ten children in Wijk bij Duurstede. After a temporary boarding school experience, in 1935 he was admitted to Wageningen, the general university. Then he took a degree in chemistry at the University of Utrecht in which he completed in 1942, although his preference was actually the biology. Another study was interrupted by the Second World War. After his refusal to sign a declaration of loyalty to the German Reich and an escape from the Germany occupied Netherlands via Switzerland, France and England, he found asylum with the U.S. Army. He completed the unfinished part of his studies medicine after the Second World War.