But then it would be impossible to forget the horrors of incarceration in the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, where millions died at the hands of the Nazis.
"It was a one-day-at-a-time existence," says the 86-year-old.
"It had to be. There was no way you could survive it otherwise."
Iby was 18 when, working as a resistance fighter in Hungary, she was arrested and eventually transported to the Polish death camp in June 1944.
However, it was only recently that she allowed herself to talk about what she saw and experienced there – experiences she has now been asked to share many times.
As a result, Iby who lives in Leeds, will be one of the guests at the Holocaust Memorial Day Legacy of Hope event, organised by Calderdale Council at Halifax's Victoria Theatre tomorrow.
"It has just snowballed and now there are so many engagements, especially around Holocaust memorial time, but I try to get along to as many as I can," she says.
Iby's story begins as a young girl growing up in her native Czechoslovakia. Fleeing from the German invasion during the Second World War, she escaped over the border into Hungary but ultimately was to be captured as an illegal immigrant.
"There were five of us, all girls and we made a pact to stay together as we walked through those gates and were greeted by the man we later learned was Dr Josef Mengele," she says of her arrival at Auschwitz.
"From that day on it became a test of survival." Miraculously, she adds, all five of them lived to witness liberation in 1945.
But it was long after the ordeal, while studying for an MA, the subject of the Holocaust was discussed and it was to pave the way for Iby to finally open her heart after decades of silence.
"We were talking about sin and evil and someone said where, on this scale, did the Holocaust sit. The lecturer responded that only someone who had experienced it could give a definitive answer. I felt I could no longer remain silent."
Iby has now started to write her story and is seeking a publisher for her manuscript which is chillingly brutal in its frankness.
"The shower unit and the gas chamber looked the same. They had been built that way, so we never knew if we were to be gassed or just showered."
She describes the infamous Dr Mengele, whose experiments in the name of medical science earned him the sobriquet, Angel of Death.
"We lined up and he would walk in front of us, picking out the weakest. Their fate was the gas chambers."
She talks of the cramped, inhuman conditions, the incredible hunger – and worse thirst – the scraps of grey, latherless soap made from human ashes, the constant fear of extermination.
Iby was to leave Auschwitz only by volunteering to go to the slave labour camp, Lippstadt where she worked in the hospital unit. On Easter Sunday, 1945, while on a death march from the camp, she was eventually freed by Allied Forces.
This year marks the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and, over the years, many have visited to pay tribute to its victims. But Iby has never been among them.
"I will never go back, no. It is all too vivid still."
As chairman of the education committee of the Holocaust Survivors' Friendship Association, she now campaigns tirelessly to keep the Holocaust memory alive.
"It exasperates me that the world is not learning its lesson. Atrocities are still going on and the dangers are there. I don't know what we can do, except tell of what we saw, what we went through, so that others will eventually learn."
THE Holocaust Memorial Day Legacy of Hope event takes place at Halifax's Victoria Theatre tomorrow from 5.30pm.
From 4.15pm, a short, commemorative event will be staged at the Piece Hall at 4.15pm, followed by a candlelight procession to the Victoria Theatre, at 5pm.
Those wishing to take part in the procession should simply turn up at the Piece Hall but entrance to the Victoria Theatre event is by ticket only. The event is free of charge but advance booking is recommended by ringing the Theatre's box office on 01422 351158.