I Never Saw Another Butterfly

"I Never Saw Another Butterfly" is a collection of works of art and poetry by Jewish children who lived in the concentration camp Theresienstadt. This book is named after a poem by one of the children, Pavel Friedmann.

infobox Book |
name = I Never Saw Another Butterfly


image_caption = Cover of I Never Saw Another Butterfly
author = Hana Volavkova
country = Czechoslovakia
language = English originally in Czech
genre = History
publisher = Schocken
release_date = March 15, 1994
media_type = Print (Paperback)
pages = 128
isbn = ISBN 0-805-21015-6

Terezin

During WWII the Gestapo used Terezin, better known by the German named Theresienstadt, as a concentration camp. The majority of the Jews sent were scholars, professionals, artists and musicians. Inmates were encouraged to lead creative lives, and concerts were even held. Within the camp, parks, grassy areas and flower beds, concert venues and statues were installed to hide the truth; that most of the inmates were going to be killed. This was all part of a Nazi plot to deceive International Red Cross inspectors into believing that Jews were being treated humanely. This façade masked the fact that of the 144,000 Jews were sent there, about 33,000 died, mostly because of the appalling conditions (hunger, stress, disease, and an epidemic of typhus at the very end of the war) Fact|date=February 2007. About 88,000 were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps Fact|date=February 2007. At the end of the war there were 17,247 survivors Fact|date=February 2007.

Part of the fortification ("Small Fortress") served as the largest Gestapo prison in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, separated from the ghetto. Around 90,000 people went through it, and 2,600 of those died there.

It was liberated on May 9th, 1945 by the Soviet Army.

The Butterfly

"The Butterfly"

:The last, the very last,:So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.:Perhaps if the sun's tears would 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 good-bye.

:For seven weeks I've lived in here,:Penned up inside this ghetto.:But I have found what I love here.:The dandelions call to me:And the white chestnut branches in the court.:Only I never saw another butterfly.

:That butterfly was the last one.:Butterflies don't live in here,::in the ghetto.

- by Pavel Friedman

Pavel Friedmann was born in Prague on January 7, 1921. He was deported to Terezin on April 26, 1942 and later to Auschwitz on September 29, 1944.

The Play

"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 the 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.

ee also

*Friedl Dicker-Brandeis

External links

* [http://www.dramaticpublishing.com/AuthorBio.php?titlelink=9775 Celeste Raspanti's page]
* [http://www.hmh.org/minisite/butterfly/index.html The Butterfly Project]
* [http://www.randomhouse.com/schocken/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780805210156 Official I Never Saw Another Butterfly Page]