His father, Joaquim Amat i Palà, was a confectioner and his mother, Concepció Piniella i Blanqué, was a teacher of music and a painter.

He became a member of Republican Left of Catalonia (Catalan: Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya) and in December 1932 he was appointed secretary to the mayor of Manresa.

Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he gave up his law degree and volunteered to join the Republican army.

Unlike many of his fellow Republican soldiers, he was fortunate to possess civilian clothes and was able to return incognito to Catalonia.

However, aware of the danger he faced as a member of Esquerra Republicana and ex-Republican soldier, soon after their marriage he crossed the border into France, where he was interned by the French authorities in the Barcarès, Argelers and Sant Cebrià camps, along with tens of thousands of other Spanish Republican refugees.

Following the German invasion of France in May 1940, Amat-Piniella and his companions fled towards the east and attempted to enter Switzerland on two occasions.

Initially, Amat-Piniella was imprisoned in the Bougenel (Belfort) barracks and then Fort Hatry, a camp for prisoners of war.

‘Extermination through work” (Vernichtung durch Arbeit) entailed carrying heavy blocks of stone and climbing the 186 steps of the “stairs of Death”.

Fortunately, as a result of the intervention of some of his contacts, he was transferred to external Kommandos working for Austrian companies and set up by the Valencian anarchist César Orquín Serra, who had managed to convince the SS that the Spanish prisoners would be more productive if they were treated less harshly.

After passing through Paris, Amat-Piniella settled temporarily in Sant Julià de Lòria (Andorra), where he completed Llunyanies (Distances), the collection of poems he had begun in Mauthausen and written on the paper of cement sacks.