BACKGROUND:
During the Holocaust, some children held at Terezin
Concentration Camp were able to write poetry about their experience and
their longing for freedom.
| "I Never Saw Another Butterfly"
Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942–1944. By Hana Volavkova (Editor)
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"A total of 15,000 children under the age of
fifteen passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp between the years
1942-44; less than 100 survived. 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." (Volavkova) |
TASK:
Write a poem about Tolerance or Intolerance using a quotation
from your book.
PROCEDURE:
1. Read poetry written by children during the Holocaust (Butterflies
are Free) See "The Butterfly" below...
2. View activity:
TEREZIN's
BUTTERFLIES
3. Create an acrostic or free-style poem from a quotation taken from your book about the Holocaust.
4. Show what you
learned about prejudice or tolerance in this poem.
5. Take the poem though the writing process with
self edits, peer edits, teacher edits.
6. Illustrate your poem with a butterfly that could
symbolize the hopes and dreams of a child.
OR make a butterfly that we can
send to The Houston Holocaust Museum.
This poem , The Butterfly, is preserved in typewritten copy on thin
copy paper in the collection of poetry by the poet, which was donated to
the State Jewish Museum during its documentation campaign. Pavel
Freidmann was born on January 7, 1921, in Prague and deported to Terezin
on April 26, 1942. He died in Aushchwitz on September 29, 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.
Pavel Friedman 4.6.1942
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“A Place Far Worse Than
Hell"
A
curtain of darkness falls over this prison
That we are forced to call a
home,
And we dream...
We dream of better times,
Where the food is plentiful and we can feel no
pain,
Where everyone is equal,
We know this peaceful slumber
Must come to a harsh end,
We are awoken...
Awoken by the horrible sound of the Nazi’s yell,
Awoken by the noises of "a place far worse than hell”,
Awoken by the sound of pain in another’s scream,
Why must we be awoken
From the peace in our dreams?
And as we work and sweat and scream and go the extra mile,
The Nazis laugh and whip us and throw dead bodies in a pile,
And then the camp becomes too dark for us to work any more.
We are chased into our barracks so that we can sleep and snore,
But after a moment of peace for all Jewish women and men,
We find ourselves living in prison once again -
“A place far worse than hell.” |
"Sorrow”
“I will
remember”
The
deportation
The devastation
The people fall
The soldier’s call
Women
to the left, men to the right
My father slips into the night
I sit on a stool, they cut my hair
I look at my arm, a number is there
I look
for my mother, she sits and weeps
My little sister, she could not keep
I stare outside at the snow
Is it really, I do not know
I lay
in my barrack, I drift away
I dream of freedom, I long for that day
I wake up, it’s already tomorrow
Another day, filled with sorrow
“I will
remember”
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