1500000 innocent children perished in the Holocaust. In an effort to remember them, Holocaust Museum Houston is collecting 1.5 million handmade butterflies. The butterflies will eventually comprise a breath-taking exhibition, currently scheduled for Spring 2013, for all to remember. The Museum has already collected an estimated 600,000 butterflies. 1.5 million children translated into 1.5 million butterflies. If you wonder why butterflies...the project is based on this poem written by Pavel Friedman in June 1942...
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.
3 comments:
So good of you to spread the word about this project. The poem is touches one's heart.
Thanks for posting about this. I would love to see this exhibit!
The poem is so touching. I would love to see this exhibition, too, I am sure it will be filled with emotions.
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