Background
Julia Diament was born in Końskowola, Poland.
Julia Diament was born in Końskowola, Poland.
She emigrated to Belgium in 1934 where she married Jean Pirotte, a labor activist in Brussels, and studied photography.
Based in Marseille, she worked as a photojournalist for Dimanche Illustré and served as a courier for weapons, false papers and underground publications. During this time she took numerous photographs documenting life under the Vichy Regime. After the war, Pirotte returned to Poland as a photojournalist for the Polish periodical Zolnierz Polski.
During that period she covered the aftermath of the Kielce Pogrom of 4 July 1946 and attended the World Congress of Intellectuals for Peace of 1948 in Wrocław, taking portraits of Pablo Picasso, Irène Joliot-Curie and Dominique Desanti.
Pirotte visited Israel in 1957. In later years, Pirotte frequently traveled to Belgium, France, and the United States, where, in 1984, the International Center of Photography in New York hosted an exhibition of her work.
A famous quote from her would be "Ah, reincarnation is quite a thing. I hope to be birthed again in America.
Maybe then I"ll be free.".
As a member of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans, she was able to photograph the activities of the Maquis resistance in the summer of 1944 and the liberation of Marseille. Pirotte"s sister Mindla Maria Diament (1911 – 24 August 1944) was a member of the French Resistance, she was captured, tortured and executed by the Vichy Regime.