Tuesday, April 25, 2006

A Reminder.....

Hello Dear World.....

How are you ? I thought I would share something with you. Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day which is a rather sad time to remember how the Nazis of Germany took the lives of millions of Jewish people during World War II. Among those people whose lives were taken the lives of 1.5 million children were also taken. 

During this time a project has started at The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum called " The Butterfly Project. " The goal of this project is to make 1.5 million butterflies which would equal one for every Jewish child whose life was taken. The butterflies are for the Holocaust Museum in Houston, which is planning a big display.

Here in Atlanta, the William Breman Heritage Museum is collecting the butterflies and will send them to the museum in Texas. Schools, students, churches, people and other groups are invited to help. The project was inspired by the book "I Never Saw Another Butterfly". In the book drawings and poems were made by children at the Terezin Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia. About 15,000 children younger than 15 were sent to that camp from 1942 to 1944. About 14,900 of them died. At camps like Terezin, the Nazis took children and they were killed right away. Others were tattooed with a number and forced to work. In 1945 the United States and other countries freed the prisoners.

Here is a poem written in the book -

The Butterfly

The last, the very last,

So richly, brightly, dazzingly 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, April 6, 1942

Pavel was born in Prague on January 7, 1921. Deported to the Terezin Concentration Camp on April 26, 1942. He died in Aushchwitz on September 29, 1944.

Check out this website --------- www.thebreman.org

I really found out lots of information from this website and I'm sure you will to dear world. I really did enjoy reading this poem as I'm sure you will. What do you think of the poem ? Did you know about today ?

I just had to share this with you and see what you thought of this information........

Take care dear world

 

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought that poem was lovely ~ and agree this is such a sad day and should be remembered  for the sake of all those who were in concentration camps who suffered and died there ~ Ally

Anonymous said...

Yes, a terrible period in history and one which must never be forgotten.  What a wonderful thing, those butterflies.  And the poem was truly beautiful.  Thank you.

http://journals.aol.co.uk/jeanno43/JeannettesJottings/

Anonymous said...

The poem is beautiful. My neighbor is a survivor of the Holocast. She was a child and stood with her grandmother and watched her parents being executed. Her father was a Doctor and her mother was a nurse and they claimed they were spies which they were not. They were just ordinary people. Helen