“Every human word and deed gets inscribed in the eternity of time”

And
she loves to write. She has been writing poetry since she was a child.
In Poland, she said, she had hoped to get a good education and become a
writer. Her mother had belonged to a literary club and “instilled a
love of writing by always reading.” While Itka hopes to someday write a
book about her experiences—as well as another book featuring the 101
sayings she has come up with—her first published book of poetry was
just released.

The 35 poems in Itka’s You Only Have What You Give Away
range from cries of disbelief and sorrow to finding her way to
understanding and gratitude. They’re a “testimony to my experiences and
what I’ve learned.” The lessons of menschlichkeit, of not being bitter,
of only having what you give away. If you only have love inside, she
explains, that’s what you give away to others; if you only have evil,
as the Nazis did, then that’s what you give away.

“I know I’m
human like everyone else. I make mistakes, but I know I cannot get away
with anything and I don’t try,” she says. The poems “I Know You” and “A
Nazi Murderer in Snow White Gloves” were based on Mengele and other
Nazis. “Intelligence has nothing to do with character,” she said. “It
has to do with respect for life. . . . To shame somebody is the
greatest sin. Those are the values I grew up with and that were tested
in Auschwitz.”

She wrote “Clipped Wings” as a teenager in Auschwitz but, lacking pencil and paper, committed it to memory. . . . I look at the sky with a heavy sigh, But my wings have been clipped and I can not fly. . . .
The number tattooed on her arm was an object of curiosity to her young
son many years ago and became the poem “Who Wrote on Your Arm?”

And “Do Not Forget Us” begs for the obvious: that people not forget the Holocaust.

Do not forget us!
The voices are pleading
Voices of our beloved families, relatives and friends
So savagely transformed to numbers and to ashes
By the bloody Nazi hands. . . .

“I
don’t ask, Why did all this happen?” says Itka, 82. “I say, How come I
was privileged to survive when six million perished?” She pauses and
the tears return. “How can I not be grateful?”

(Click Silver Star Itka Zygmuntowicz Photo Gallery to see pictures of her early life and relatives lost in the Holocaust.)