No butterflies in concentration camps

Maddie's big debut in a Drama...

She was "Child #3" in this beautiful, poignant play in an inter-district competition.

Maddie's middle school performed their play, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, last Friday for parents and judges. It was a multi-district One Act play competition. She played a nameless child of Terezin (Czechoslovakia) who dreamed of making her bed (having a bed, again, one day) and of the simple things in life; it was a drama and Maddie performed so well!! She was the only 6th grader in the play and she took rehearsals very seriously. We found her a grey dress and white shawl at the Goodwill store and dirty-ed it up for the show. She was complemented by the director and stage manager as being extremely focused (she stayed in character even off stage) and driven and talented. Yea Maddie! It was so thrilling to watch her perform something like this. Here are some facts about the real children who inspired this play to be written:

I Never Saw Another Butterfly is 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.

The book at the top is:

"I never saw another butterfly..."

Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942–1944.

By Hana Volavkova (Editor) "More than 12,000 children under the age of 15 passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp between the years 1942-1944. More than 90 percent perished during the Holocaust. In these poems and pictures drawn by the young inmates of Terezin, we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their courage and optimism, their hopes and fears."

Here is the poem that inspired the title:

"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. Pavel Friedman, June 4, 1942

Then I saw this today in book of photographs of Israel.

Today is Yom HaShoah, or:

Photos of Israel: El Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem with the Wailing Wall in front of it. A huge symbol for Palestinians behind a mecca for Jewish prayers and rituals. Holocaust Remembrance Day -- Israel honors the memory of the Six Million who were killed by learning about their heroism in the face of inhumanity, and exploring the roots of anti-Semitism. Also during this day, tens of thousands of Israeli high-school students, and thousands of Jews and non-Jews from around the world, hold a memorial service in Auschwitz, in what has become known as "The March of the Living," in defiance of the Holocaust Death Marches. One of the most powerful experiences I ever had was when I spent the day at the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem (January 1988, BYU Israel Study Abroad). I saw wall-sized photographs of mountains of murdered Jews, heard Hitler's voice over the radio as he denounced these good people, and read millions of names in a giant card catalogue system on the top floor. I remember writing many pensive thoughts in my journal that night...I felt like I was in a funk for a few days and my understanding of the world had changed.