NHD TOPIC Selection Essay

Brian Rose
Mr. Brasof, Ms. Garcia – Thompson, Ms. Klose
Historiography, Technology, Art History
November 27, 2008

Itka Zygmuntowicz was born in the year 1926, Itka was born and raised in Ciechanow, Poland. When she was 15 years old, the Nazi troops took her and her family to the infamous Auschwitz concentration death camp. She survived this terrible time and she shares her experiences with school children all around the United States of America. She has dedicated her life to teaching people about the Holocaust and remembering all of the victims. She is a member of the Memorial Committee for the Six Million Jewish Martyrs of the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Association of Holocaust Survivors in Philadelphia. She is also a poet and recalls her experiences in her poetry. Her poems are so inspirational and heartfelt. She is an inspiration to all people who think they are in a bad situation. If she can survive the Holocaust, other people can survive anything.
Itka was a survivor of the Holocaust. She escaped from the concentration camp. She survived a time of total carnage. She was a witness and a victim of the torture and abuse of the Nazi’s. She has solved the problem of the lack of awareness of the Holocaust. She travels to schools all over the United States and teaches students about the Holocaust. She tries to inspire people that they can get through anything. She shows the human resiliency to survive. Her poems show us that we can make it through anything. When you read her poems, you can feel all the pain and suffering she went through.
This year’s National History Day Topic is “An Individual in History, Actions and legacies”. Itka fits into this category because of her will to survive and her courage to overcome challenges that face her. She has been dedicated to teaching young adults about the Holocaust. She tries to help people remember all of the victims of the Holocaust and get more people to respect them. You can ask any person who has met her and they will tell you that she is an inspiration to all. I am pleased to be able to meet her. I am going to meet her and I am going to record the whole interview. I am going to include the interview in my project.
I am now going to recite one of Itka’s poems so you can hear for yourself how inspirational and heartfelt her poems are.
This Poem is from Itka’s book “You Only Have What You Give Away”.
“The Silent Voice” (Itka dedicated this poem to all those whose voices have been silenced forever in the Holocaust from 1933 – 1945)
When ages of civilization crumble to dust,
And death is raging supreme.
When the devil is crowned by the power of deceit,
Then freedom is a far away dream.

When all you’ve loved is taken from you,
And you are stripped to the bare bone. When all moral boundaries and laws are broken,
Then you are in hell with Satan alone!

When Jews are depicted as subhuman, as “vermin”,
And brute force and evil prevail,
When doctors and nurses turn children to corpses,
Then all logic and reason fail!

When the whole world remains dead silent,
With the exception of just a few.
Then they grant Satan license and opportunity,
To murder in the gas chambers God loving Jew!

When men and women are kept apart,
And new life is not conceived.
When there is no sound of laughter and song,
How can God by man be perceived?

When the mass murder of the Jews becomes legal,
Under the banner of ideology or God’s sacred name,
Then it is not the victim’s but the Nazi murderers,
Who did not resist Satan and defied God’s name.

When living skeletons are marching at gun point,
Through the gates of Auschwitz in long columns of five,
Cold starved, forced to hard labor.
What power on earth gave them the strength to survive/

When all head are shaved, all human rights are denied,
And all wear the same kind of tattered striped dress.
When the worship of God becomes a crime,
Then the whole world is in a terrible mess!

When Hitler’s dream becomes a reality,
And the Nazis send Jews to the left and to the right,
Then such men are not ruled by God’s divine power,
By their own burning ambition for power and might.

When the’ so called’ “Superior Aryan “Nazi race,
Used their knowledge, technology, and skill,
To murder six million Jews mealy for being born Jewish,
But that’s not God’s, but Hitler’s democratic will!