Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp
She was born in 1927 in Krakow to the Weinfeld family. During World War II she was interned in the Kraków Ghetto, and then an inmate of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, Auschwitz concentration camp and finally the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. After the latter camp's liberation by the British army, she was among the ailing women inmates evacuated by the Swedish Red Cross for convalescence in Sweden. In 1946 she found her way to Mandatory Palestine. She qualified as a registered nurse, and studied literature and history at Tel Aviv University. She also served as a cultural attaché in Israeli diplomatic posts located in Budapest and Stockholm. Miriam Akavia was one of the three students who were stopped from attending public schools as a result of German Invasion; however, she was transferred to the Jewish Gymnazjum.