Ilse Daus

Ilse Daus was born in 1911 in Vienna

Ilse Kantor was born in Vienna in 1911 and grew up in Prague in a well-off family. She was the youngest of three children of Alfred Kantor and Therese Berg, who owned a factory. Her brother Friedrich Torberg later became a writer in Austria.

She showed artistic interests as a child, and her parents sent her to study art at the national fine arts school in Paris.

In October 1939 she immigrated to the Land of Israel and joined Kibbutz Na'an. There she worked in the metal workshop, repairing tools, and drew for the kibbutz children in her free time. In 1944 the Hakibbutz Hameuchad publishing house asked her to illustrate Fania Bergstein's poems, and the book appeared in 1945.

In 1948 she illustrated Bergstein's "Vayehi Erev", but the publisher printed it with drawings by Haim Hausman. She married composer Avraham Daus and had 2 daughters. They moved to Kibbutz Gvat and later became members of Kibbutz Heftziba, and she taught art at Gvat and at Oranim College.

She died in Heftziba in 2000. In 2011 "Vayehi Erev Hadash" was published with her original illustrations.