By Anthony DeWitt
Born in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation of Poland, Danuta Zamojska Hutchinsan escaped the horrors of war by leaving central Europe to attend college in America.
But the things she saw there will stay with her for the rest of her life.
Hutchinsan became much more than a wife and mother in America. She eventually became a professor at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake — where she still lives.
Hutchinsan was the guest speaker during the Burlington Public Library’s “Specifically for Seniors” program Friday, April 7, and she stressed the power of empathy. She spoke about the Ukrainian-Russian conflict and encouraged people to be better to each other.
“Out of fear, you have to help others,” she said. “I am anti-war, but at the same time if you don’t go and fight the hydra, it will come and eat you.”
After the attacks on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Danuta started having nightmares of her own experiences during World War II.
She started writing down and drawing those nightmares, and those recollections evolved into her book — “Torn Out Memories.”
The book is comprised of stories of Hutchinsan’s youth, and she writes of the horrors she faced during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Seeing a woman’s dead body being fed upon by cats. A crying child was butted in the head by a rifle stock and killed by a soldier. His mother, screaming, was shot.
Hutchins and her family almost starved to death, and she recalled seeing her mother trying to dig for potatoes in the frozen Polish ground in her desperation to feed her family.
She credited FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and U.S. President Harry Truman (the American government) for taking care of her as a young child and feeding her family with relief packages.
She carries that kindness with her — always.
“I would not be here if not for them,” she said.