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.

Pavel Friedman 4.6.1942

This poem 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.

Israeli Air Force at Auschwitz

Israeli Air Force at Auschwitz

Tomorrow is Yom HaShoah – Holocaust Remembrance day, here’s a video from 2003 of a ceremony to remember what it was, as well as what will ever be truer. Out of those dark furnaces came new resolve, new courage, and ultimately a resurrected nation.

“Triumph of the Return” – On September 4, 2003, in a large ceremony, the Israeli Air Force flew three f-15 jets over the Auschwitz concentration camp in a show of the Jewish people’s continued strength and triumph over past adversities.
During the Holocaust (1939-1945) 6 million Jews were murdered at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators. Millions of Jews and other victims of the Nazis were imprisoned, enslaved and murdered at Auschwitz and her sister camps.
This visit was a testament to the world that the saying “never again” is not just a slogan.
Many of the participants were the children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors.