Irene Frisch
Irene Frisch has written many articles and stories about her childhood in Poland, surviving the Holocaust, living in Israel and then in the United States. Most of her stories are on her website www.AnneFrankAndMe.com.
Her stories are also printed in the book "Give Me The Children", co-written with her sister Pola Arbiser. Her stories have been printed in newspapers and magazines including The New York Post, and the book Chicken Soup for the Jewish Soul.
Irene Frisch was born Irene Bienstock in Drohobycz, Poland (now Ukraine) and survived the Holocaust in hiding. She is the daughter of Jacob and Sarah Bienstock. She, her sister Pola and mother were hidden for 2 and a half years in the apartment of Frania Swobodka, a woman who was the girls' nanny before the war. Irene's story "My Christmas Story" is about the night Miss Swobodka rescued her from the Drohobycz Ghetto in 1941.
After liberation, Irene lived in Poland, Germany, Israel and since 1960 the New York metropolitan area. She attended high school in Poland and college at the University of Heidelberg (Germany) and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She also obtained a master's degree in Library Science from Columbia University (New York). She is married and has 2 children and 4 grandchildren.