Miriam Winter (Maria Orlowski), was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1933. She and her family were in the Warsaw ghetto in 1940, then in Ozarow 1940-1941.

Young Miriam, age 8, was given by her parents to a Jewish woman from Lubicz, Cesia, who, in a chance meeting on a train, handed her over to a Polish woman, Maryla. Miriam spent the war with Maryla as a hidden child. She changed her name to Maria, became a Catholic and a Pole. After the war, she stayed for a time with Maryla, then was in an orphanage. She immigrated to the United States in 1969.

Maria Orlowski has a Ph.D. in theatre from Michigan State University, (1992), and is a graduate of the Leon Schiller's Advanced State School for Theatre in Lodz, Poland. She taught acting at Michigan State University and is currently teaching at Jackson Community College, where she also directed ANTIGONE, ONDINE, and PEER GYNT. Her own most recent performance was in the Michigan Radio Theatre production of REMNANTS.