Holocaust “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” Life in Thereseinstadt (Terezin)

At Terezin-written on a piece of drawing paper, in pencil

When a new child comesEverything seems strange to himWhat, on the ground I have to lie?

Eat black potatoes? Not I!I’ve got to stay? Its dirty here!

The floor-why, look, its dirt, I fear!And I’m supposed to sleep on it?

I’ll get all dirty!

Here the sounds of shouting, cries,And oh, so many flies.

Everyone knows flies carry disease.Oooh, something bit me! Wasn’t that a

bedbug?Here in Terezin, life is hell

And when I’ll go home again, I can’t yet tell.

~Teddy, 1943

The Butterfly-the poem is preserved in typewritten copy on this copy paper; Pavel was born on January 7, 1921 in Prague and died on September 29, 1944 in Auschwitz.

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 yellowIs carried lightly ‘way up high.’

It went away I’m sure because it wished toKiss 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 here,

In the ghetto.

~Pavel Friedman, April 6, 1942

Fear-Eva was born in Nymburk on May 15, 1929 and died in Auschwitz on December 18, 1943.

Today in the ghetto knows a different fear,Close in its grip, death wields an icy

scythe.An evil sickness spreads terror in its wake,

the vicitms of its shadow, weep and writhe.

Today a father’s heartbeat tells his frightAnd mothers bend their heads into their

hands.Now children chose and die with typhus

here,A bitter tax is taken from their bands.

My heart still beats inside my breastWhile friends depart for other worlds.

Perhaps its better—who can say?Than watching this, to die today?

No, no, my God, we want to live!Not watch our numbers melt away.

We want to have a better world,We want to work—we must not die!

~Eva Ockova, 12 Years Old

I Am a Jew

I am a Jew and will be a Jew forever.Even if I should die from hungar,

Never will I submit.I will always fight for my people,

On my honor.I will never be ashamed of them,

I give my word.

I am proud of my people,How dignified they are.

Even though I am suppressed,I will always come back to life.

~Fanta Bass

From the Writings of Petr Fischl-typed copy written on a piece of thin copy paper; Petr was born September 9, 1929 and died in Auschwitz on October 8, 1944

We got used to standing in line at seven o’clock in the morning, at twelve noon, and again at seven o’clock in the evening. We stood in a long queue with a plate in our hand, into which they ladled a little warmed-up water with a salty or coffee flavor. Or else they gave us a few potatoes. We got used to sleeping without a bed, to saluting every uniform, not to walk on the sidewalks and then again to walk on the sidewalks. We got used to undeserved slaps, blows, and executions. We got used accustomed to seeing people die in their own excrement, to seeing piled-up coffins full of corpses, to seeing the sick amid the dirt and filth and to seeing the helpless doctors. We got used to it that from time to time, one thousand unhappy souls would come here and that, from time to time, another thousand unhappy souls would go away…

From the Diary of Helga Weissova-Helga was born in Prague on November 10, 1929 and deported to Terezin on December 17, 1941. She recorded what she saw during her 2 ½ years in both her diary and drawings. After being deported to Auschwitz in 1944, she survived and returned to Prague to study painting.

The camp command issued new orders about the “beautifying campaign” that must be finished in two months. It’s ridiculous but it seems that Terezin is to be changed into a sort of spa. The orders are received in the evening, and in the morning everyone’s eyes are staring with wonder, where did this or that thing come from?...The school building that had seved as a hospital up to today was cleared out overnight and the patients put elsewhere while the whole building was repainted, scrubbed up, school benches brought in, and in the morning a sign could be seen from afar: “Boys’ and Girls’ School.” It really looks fine, like a real school, only the pupils and teachers are missing. That

shortcoming is adjusted by a small note on the door: “Holidays.” On the square the newly sown grass is coming up, the center is adorned by a big rose plot, and te paths, covered with clean, ellow sand, are lined with two rows of newly painted benches…In two of the barracks some bunks and shelves were painted yellow and they got blue curtains. In the park in front of the Infants’ Home they put up a luxury pavilion with cribs and light blue, quilted covers. In one room there are toys, a carved rocking horse, and so on. Nonve of us can explain why they are all doing this. Are they so concerned about that commission (The Red Cross)?

Diary Entry from the Lodz GhettoDo you have any children at all in the ghetto? A child, if fortunate enough to avoid death, immediately becomes a full-fledged grown-up. There are no children in the ghetto; there are only small Jews up to the age of ten, who do not work but queue at the soup kitchens and bread lines, and…small Jews aged ten and over who already work--still beardless and unmarried, but already working.

It is difficult, if only because it’s the burden of this small Jew has to report to work by seven o’clock, he has to wake up at six o’clock, and for this small Jew every extra hour of wakefulness means another hour of hunger pangs all day long.

And if hunger has not yet caused their legs to swell, because they do not have to carry a large body as do their parents’ legs, they nevertheless have twisted, bent spines; sunken chests; lifeless eyes, their gazes turned somewhere far away, alien and cold, like today’s sky…

Unknown Girl in the Lodz Ghetto

-this poem was written by an unknown girl left alone in the Lodz ghetto with her brother. Their fate is unknown, but it must be assumed that both brother and sister perished in the Holocaust.

Childhood, precious days,Alas, how few they were!

I will remember them as if in a fog.Only in dreams at night can I

Identify days long gone.Brief, brief is the happiness of a person in

this world of ours.

Holocaust Drawing #1

“Butterflies”-Watercolor and pencil on paper- by Margit Korezova, died in Auschwitz at age 11.

Holocaust Drawing #2

“Everyone was hungry” Liana Franklová 10 years old. Terezín

Holocaust Drawing #3

Ella Liebermann. 16 years old. Very tight, the jews from every part of Europe were sent to the death. Bedzin’s ghetto. Poland.

Holocaust Drawing #4

Helga Weissova. 13 years old. Drawing titled “Terezín arrival”. Helga entered in the concentration field with just 12 years old. She brought a box with paintings and a notebook. She draw more than 100 paintings doing what her father told her: “Paint whatever you see”. Here ended Helga’s childhood. With the responsibility of painting everything she saw and experienced. She was one of the few survivors.

Holocaust Drawing #5

Helga Weissova. The last drawing of her series, made at Terezín

Holocaust Drawing #6

Ella Liebermann. 16 years old. Eating and soup distribution. Bedzin’s ghetto. Poland.