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Itka Zygmuntowicz in her home in Northeast Philadelphia
Photos by Selah Maya Zighelboim
“Despite everything that’s happened, I don’t hate anyone,”
Zygmuntowicz said. “Not even the Nazis, because if I would hate
them, they would win, and I would lose.”
Her life includes highs as well as lows. She has met former
President Bill Clinton. She has spoken about her experience in the
Holocaust at synagogues and schools. Despite now being physically
disabled, she is still active, regularly attending KleinLife programs.

Zygmuntowicz was born Itka Frajman in Ciechanów, Poland
in 1926, the eldest of three siblings.

Her interest in poetry came from her mother, Zygmuntowicz
said, who was a Yiddish theater actress.

When her mother had children, she stopped working in the
theater, but her love of the arts remained. She would read poems
and sing to her children.

Zygmuntowicz always had a way with words, she said. She
wrote about anything that inspired her.

She was only 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. She was sepa-
rated from her parents and siblings, never seeing saw them again.

During her years of imprisonment at Auschwitz, she endured
starvation and inhumane conditions.

In the barracks, she also became friends with a girl named
Bina. The two of them would remain friends for decades, even as
the events of history took them to different continents — Bina to
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MAY 9, 2019
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