I'm making a butterfly this week

I Never Saw Another Butterfly is a collection of works of art and poetry by Jewish children who lived in the the ghetto transition camp at Terezin. The book is named after a poem by one of the children, Pavel Friedmann.

I Never Saw Another Butterfly

I never saw another butterfly . . .

The last, the very last,

so richly, brightly, dazzling yellow.

Perhaps if the sun's tears sing

against a white stone . . .

Such, such a yellow

Is carried lightly `way up high.

It went away I'm sure because it

wished to kiss the world goodbye.

For seven weeks I've lived in here,

Penned up inside this ghetto,

but I have found my people here.

The dandelions call to me,

And the white chestnut candles in the court.

Only I never saw another butterfly.

That butterfly was the last one.

Butterflies don't live here in the ghetto.

-- Pavel Friedman, June 1942

I Never Saw Another Butterfly is also the name of a one-act play by Celeste Raspanti. It is a true story about the life of a girl, Raja Englanderova, who survived Terezin. The play is a series of flashbacks in which Raja retells each segment of her life in Terezin, starting from when she first arrived at Terezin as a scared child and ending with a collage of voices in her memory.

Jaclyn is in this play tonight as one of the children in the camp. This picture of her at the dress rehearsal hurts my heart.

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Here's something that heals my heart a little bit: The Butterfly Project :

"1, 500, 000 innocent children died in the holocaust. In an effort to remember them the Holocaust Museum Houston is collecting 1.5 million handmade butterflies. The butterflies will eventually comprise a breath-taking exhibition for all to remember.
Please facilitate the “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” activity and collect as many handmade arts-and-crafts butterflies as possible. Send them to the address below:

Holocaust Museum Houston

Education Department

5401 Caroline Street

Houston, TX 77004

USA "