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Survivor Itka Zygmuntowicz Dies at 94
OB ITUARY
SOPHIE PANZER | JE STAFF
EVEN AFTER SHE experienced
the horrors of Auschwitz, Holocaust
survivor Itka Zygmuntowicz did
not hate anyone.

As she told the Jewish Exponent
in 2019, hating the Nazis would
mean letting them win.

Instead, she channeled her
energy into raising her family,
writing poetry and teaching
students how to have hope in
the face of tragedy.

“So many mountains, so
many streams/ So many hopes,
such endless dreams./ I yearn to
fill my empty cup/ And drink
life’s joy and never stop,” she
wrote in her 1967 poem “Life’s
Dream.” Zygmuntowicz died in
her bed in her Northeast
Philadelphia home on Oct. 9.

She was 94.

She was the author of the
poetry books “You Only Have
What You Give Away” and “The
Power of Words and Deeds.”
In 2016 she also published a
memoir, “Remember, My
Child,” which tells the story of
her life through photos, narra-
tive and poetry.

“She felt this incredible
responsibility to be a witness,”
her son Samuel Zygmuntowicz
said. Zygmuntowicz was born
Itka Frajman in Ciechanów,
Poland in 1926. She credited
her interest in poetry to her
mother, who was a Yiddish
theater actress. When she was a
child, her grandmother taught
her, “You only have what you
give away.”
She was 13 when Germany
invaded Poland in 1939. Two
years later, she and her family
were deported to the Nowe
Miasto Ghetto and then to
Auschwitz-Birkenau. “Yitkele, remember, my
child, no matter what they
do, don’t let them make you
hateful and bitter, don’t let them
destroy you,” her mother told
her before they were separated.

She would never see her mother
or her younger siblings again.

Even as she endured
i n hu ma ne
conditions, Zygmuntowicz remembered
her mother’s words and fiercely
reminded herself that she was
“Yitkele” when the Nazis called
her by the number on her arm.

The Swedish Red Cross
liberated her in 1945. She was
sent to recover at a hospital in
Sweden, then to a displaced
persons camp. In 1946, she
met and married Rachmil
Zygmuntowicz. They moved
to Philadelphia through a
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www.TheHearthAtDrexel.org JEWISH EXPONENT
Cover of Itka Zygmuntowicz’s
memoir Photo by Selah Maya Zighelboim
Courtesy of Samuel Zygmuntowicz
Itka Zygmuntowicz in her home in
Northeast Philadelphia
particularly strong reaction to
Zygmuntowicz’s story because his
family survived the Cambodian
genocide. “He shared that with her, and
broke down into tears in front
of, you know, 50-plus students
because of what happened to his
family, and she said, ‘Come here
and give me a hug,” she said.

“We were all in tears.”
Itka Zygmuntowicz would
endure even more tragedy with
the loss of her husband and
her son Michael in separate car
accidents. She became physically
disabled in her later years after
she broke her back falling down
the stairs in her home.

Samuel Zygmuntowicz said
that after years of confine-
ment, personal freedom was
extremely important to her,
and she was determined to live
in her own home rather than an
assisted living facility. Despite
relying on a cane to walk and
needing assistance to leave her
home after the accident, she
remained active and regularly
attended KleinLife programs.

He said his mother never
let tragedy change her loving
personality. “It was about not being hateful,
taking tragedy and transforming
it into something that bolsters
your humanity,” he said. l
relocation program in 1953.

The couple had four sons
together: Erland, Jerry, Sam and
Michael Zygmuntowicz. Erland
Zygmuntowicz described his
mother as an anchor, a singer
and a talented cook.

“She created this feeling
of beauty and peace in our
family,” he said. “And she really
taught us the values she learned
in her family in Poland, about
the meaning of menschlichkeit,
humaneness.” She brought her values of
menschlichkeit into classrooms
and museums during the 1970s
when she began speaking publicly
about her experiences surviving
the Holocaust. Lise Marlowe,
chair of the education committee
at the Holocaust Awareness
Museum and Education Center,
said her words helped students
understand that it was possible to
endure struggles and go on to live
a happy life.

“She gave students so many
stories of hope, of how to be a
tolerant person and how to be
a kind person, and how to love
people. She just was really good
at giving so much love where
you felt so special when you
were with her,” Marlowe said.

Marlowe, who is a sixth
grade social studies teacher in
Cheltenham School District, spanzer@jewishexponent.com;
said one of her students had a 215-832-072
JEWISHEXPONENT.COM



H eadlines
NEWSBRIEFS German Auction House Under Fire Again for
Selling Hitler Manuscripts
A MUNICH, GERMANY, auction house that was
widely condemned last year for selling Nazi memora-
bilia is being criticized again — this time for selling
Adolf Hitler-penned manuscripts, JTA reported.

The European Jewish Association criticized
Hermann Historica on Oct. 20 for the manuscripts
it is selling, many of which are notes written before
infamous speeches Hitler made in the 1930s.

“It defies logic, decency and humanity for the very
same auction house that came under fire less than a
year ago for selling disgusting lots of Nazi memora-
bilia that they should do so again,” Rabbi Menachem
Margolin, head of the Brussels-based association,
said in a statement. “I cannot get my head around the
sheer irresponsibility and insensitivity.”
In November, Hermann Historica auctioned 10 items
that belonged to Hitler and other Nazi memorabilia,
including a silver-plated copy of “Mein Kampf” that
once belonged to senior Nazi Hermann Goering. A
Lebanese-Swiss businessman bought the items and then
donated them to Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal.

as it was 1,000 years ago and continues to decline,
according to a study published Oct. 21 by the London-
based Institute for Jewish Policy Research, JTA reported.

The study said there were 1.3 million people who
describe themselves as Jewish in continental Europe,
the United Kingdom, Turkey and Russia.

That’s a decline of nearly 60% since 1970, when
there were 3.2 million Jews, report authors Daniel
Staetsky and Sergio DellaPergola wrote.

“The proportion of Jews residing in Europe is about
the same as it was at the time of the first Jewish global
population account conducted by Benjamin of Tudela, a
Jewish medieval traveler, in 1170,” they wrote.

Aside from the deaths of about 6 million European
Jews in the Holocaust, the decline is mostly tied to the
emigration of more than 1.5 million people following
the collapse of the Iron Curtain. But Western Europe
also has lost 8.5% of its Jewish population since 1970.

Ukraine, for 25 years. He obtained citizenship in 1960.

Lower courts have stripped Oberlander of his
citizenship four times, but appeals led to reversals. In
December, the country’s Supreme Court rejected his
latest appeal.

“Canada cannot continue to allow a mockery to
be made of its processes,” B’nai Brith Canada CEO
Michael Mostyn said in a statement. “Oberlander has
had his day in court, and he lost. To not remove him
now would be a punch in the gut to every Holocaust
survivor in this country.”
Social Media Platforms to Expand Range of
Hate Content Bans
Video platform TikTok announced Oct. 21 that it
was expanding the range of hate content it will ban,
following the lead of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube,
JTA reported.

TikTok said while it already bans Holocaust denial
Canadian Jews Demand Deportation of
and works to remove neo-Nazi and white supremacist
Nazi War Criminal
content, it will begin removing posts that advocate
B’nai Brith Canada asked Canadian Prime Minister Justin similar ideologies like white nationalism, male
Trudeau to move forward with the deportation of Nazi war supremacy and “white genocide theory.”
Bulletin Print Ad It also said it would ban “misinformation about
criminal Helmut Oberlander, the Algemeiner reported.

Europe’s Jewish Population as Low Now as
The Canadian government has tried to deport notable Jewish individuals and families who are used
1,000 Years Ago — and Still Declining
as proxies to spread
anti-Semitism.” Oberlander, 95, who served with It's
a death simple
squad respon-
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The Jewish share of Europe’s population is as low now sible for more than 90,000 murders in Russia and
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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