Terezin - Poems from the Holocaust

Northwest of Prague, is the city of Terezin, a concentration camp in its own right, but really a way station to Auschwitz.  It was a place where many adult and youth artists, musicians & writers, expressed themselves during their confinement.  At its height, the prisoner population reached 55,000.  97,000 Czech Jews died at Terezin.

The book "I never saw another butterfly" is a collection of poetry and art from children who were imprisoned at Terezin.

The title comes from the poem by Pavel Friedman who was deported to Auschwitz where he was murdered in 1944.

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.