AMIEL Irit

Born in 1931 in Częstochowa into a Jewish family, daughter of textile shop owner Leon Librowicz, and Natalie, née Hassenfeld (both died in Treblinka in 1942). She spent her childhood in Czestochowa and was forced into the city's ghetto in 1941. She escaped it in September 1942. She went into hiding (as Krystyna Iwańczak and Krystyna Hankiewicz) in Czestochowa, then in a village near to the city and later in Warsaw (together with her uncle and his family). Following the defeat of the Warsaw Uprising, she stayed in Pocieszna Górka near Czestochowa, before returning to the city after the end of the war. She spent a short period at the Słowacki Secondary School for Girls (Gimnazjum Żeńskie im. J. Słowackiego). Using the assistance of the Bricha organization, which aided the illegal emigration of the Jewish population, she left Poland in late 1945. In December 1947 she reached Palestine via refugee camps in Germany (Biberach an der Riss), Italy (Turin) and Cyprus. She spent several months in the Beit Hashita kibbutz, while from 1949 she lived in the Palmachim kibbutz, where she worked as a farmer and fisherwoman. There she met Chuze Amiel, whom she went on to marry in 1953. After leaving the kibbutz, she held various jobs, including as a civil servant, while she also produced and sold artisan jewellery. Towards the end of the 1970s, she studied philology, history and literary history at the Open University of Israel in Ra'anana, then from 1981 to 1985 she studied translation at Beit-Berl College in Kefar Sava. Subsequently, she worked on translations of poetry and prose into Polish from Hebrew and vice versa. She made her debut in 1987 with a translation of the memoirs of M. Hochberg-Marjańska and M. Peleg titled. Wśród przyjaciół i wrogów. Poza gettem w okupowanym Krakowie. (Among friends and enemies. Outside the ghetto in occupied Krakow). From 1994 she translated further works, including novels by L. Lipski, M. Hłasko, H. Krall and H. Grynberg, as well as the poetry of W. Szymborska), while she also published her own works in the Tel Aviv weekly "Nowiny — Kurier" and the annual "Kontury. Wybór prozy i poezji autorów piszących po polsku w Izraelu", which specializes in publishing Polish-language writers in Israel. She published the first volume of her own poetry (in Hebrew) in 1994 (which appeared the same year in Polish as Egzamin z Zagłady – Holocaust exam), while she made her prose debut in 1999. She has published her poetry and prose in publications including "Midrasz" (since 1997), "Słowo Żydowskie = Dos Jidische Wort" (since 1997) and "Czas Kultury" (since 1999). She became a member of Związek Autorów Piszących po Polsku w Izraelu (The Association of Authors Writing in Polish in Israel). In 2014 she received the Honorary Prize of the City of Częstochowa.
She has two children: Lion Mosze (b. 1955) and Yechudita (Dita, b. 1958), who is a painter and photographer. Dita has designed the covers for all of her mother's books. Irit Amiel lives in Tel Aviv.