Jan Hell (born November 20, 1952, Krakow, Poland) is a Polish journalist and diplomat who served as the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Poland to Ukraine from October 26, 2016 to January 31, 2019. As a journalist, he has covered key events, including the Romanian Revolution of 1989 and the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and is the author of two books on the Balkans.
Peklo earned a master's degree in Polish philology from the Jagiellonian University in 1977. From 1978 to 1981, he worked as a journalist at "Gazeta Krakivska" and was an active member of the Editorial Board of "Solidarity". After the introduction of martial law in Poland, he was dismissed from his job, after which he worked as a psychotherapist at the Clinic of Child and Youth Psychiatry in Krakow.
In 1989-1990, he was a journalist for "Tygodnika Powszechnego" and covered the events of the Romanian revolution and the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu's regime. In 1992–1995, as an independent reporter, he covered the breakup of Yugoslavia and the war in Bosnia. Since 2000, he has been editing the online magazine "Forum" dedicated to the dialogue of cultures, and in 2011-2013 he was a member of the Steering Committee of the Civil Society Forum of the Eastern Partnership under the European Commission.
In Ukraine, he is known for the book "The Smell of an Angel", which tells about people and the angels who are next to them, about love that overcomes death and brings hope. The events of the novel cover periods that include the struggle for Polish Solidarity, the wars in the Balkans, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
