Halina Birenbaum, born in Poland and living since 1947 in Israel, is a poet and writer. She spent her childhood in the Warsaw ghetto, from where in 1943 she was transported to Majdanek and next to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In 1945, she survived the death march, which led her to the camps of Ravens-brück and Neustadt-Glewe, where she stayed until liberation. The post-war period spent in Warsaw ‘kibbutzim’ Ichud and Hashomer Hatzair made her seek refuge in the ‘land of the forefathers.’ She emigrated from Poland during the ‘Bricha’ action and went through months of wandering, leading her, inter alia, to Bratislava, Prague, the camp in Airing, Bad Reichenhall, Eschweige and France. She began her life in the new motherland in kib-butzim to finally settle down with her husband and children in the town of Herzliya, where she still lives today.

Halina Birenbaum is a member of the Polish Writers' Association in Israel. She translates Polish literature into Hebrew and takes up a number of initiatives aimed at—as she says—“more reconciliation than repairing the Polish-Jewish relations” (Kuryłek, 2006, p. 277) as well as the relations between the Jews and the Germans. For her social activity, the writer was awarded the medal ‘Pax 1939-1945’ (1996), the ‘Auschwitz Cross’ (1997), the ‘Officer's Cross of the Order of the Rebirth of Poland’ (1999), and the Polish Council of Christians and Jews granted her the title of the ‘Reconciliation Person of 2001.’