Amalija Knavs
Slovenian factory worker who became Trump’s mother-in-law
AMALIJA KNAVS, who has died aged 78, was a Slovenian former factory worker and mother of the former US First Lady Melania Trump; a striking beauty like her daughter, she was credited with inspiring Melania with an appreciation for fashion which would ultimately take her to the New York Fashion Week party at Manhattan’s Kit Kat Club in 1998, where she met Donald Trump.
Amalija and her husband Viktor, a former car parts salesman, moved to the US with Melania and for many years lived on green cards sponsored by their daughter.
In 2018, however, they swore an oath of citizenship in a naturalisation ceremony in New York, having met the requirements for the “family-based” migration system whereby, after settling in the US, immigrants could bring relatives into the country.
A few months earlier President Trump had denounced this system in a tweet as “chain migration” which “must end now! Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil. NOT ACCEPTABLE!”
Amalija Ulcnik was born on July 9 1945, in Judendorfstrassengel, Austria, and grew up there and in Raka, Slovenia, when it was still part of Tito’s Yugoslavia. Her father, Anton, was a cobbler and later a red-onion farmer. Her mother, also Amalija, was a seamstress.
Young Amalija harvested onions on the farm before going to work, from 1964, as a pattern cutter at the Jutranjka childrenswear factory, a state-owned concern at Sevnica, a town located 30 miles east of the capital Ljubljana and best known at the time for its medieval castle and annual salami festival. She was said to stand out for coming to work in high heels and may at some point have gained a promotion to pattern designer.
In 1966 she married Viktor Knavs, a snappily dressed chauffeur turned travelling car salesman who would eventually open a moderately successful shop selling bicycles and spare car parts.
They had a daughter, Ines, who became an artist, in 1968, before Melanija was born in 1970 (she changed her name to Melania Knauss when she started modelling).
Viktor was in the League of Communists but is said to have had his children secretly baptised as Catholics. The family then moved into a governmentowned housing block for textile factory workers, and later bought a flat in Ljubljana.
Inspired by western European fashions, Amalija made dresses for her daughters, and, as Melania recalled in a speech to the Republican National Convention in 2016: “My elegant and hard-working mother Amalija introduced me to fashion and beauty. My father, Viktor, instilled in me a passion for business and travel.”
Melania, her parents and sister moved to their flat in Ljubljana and the girls were educated at the city’s Secondary School of Design and Photography. But her family retained their links with Sevnica, building their own white-painted house with a balcony and staying there at weekends.
Melania was 16 when she was spotted by a fashion photographer in Ljubljana who invited her to pose for him. After modelling in western Europe, she moved to New York in 1996.
Two years later she met Donald Trump. The two became engaged in 2004 and married the next year in Palm Beach, Florida. Melania became a US citizen in 2006.
It is unclear when the Knavses arrived in the US, but they were soon reported to be spending time in Trump Tower in Manhattan and at Mar-a-lago, Trump’s beach resort in Palm Beach. During Trump’s presidency they spent time at the White House.
Melania’s success also allowed her parents to buy a handsome mansion in Sevnica – complete with security guards to keep unwanted visitors at bay.
Amalija Knavs is survived by her husband and daughters.
Amalija Knavs, born July 9 1945, died January 9 2024