The kids of the Sunday School Classes (and some of the adults) made Butterflies yesterday. They made butterflies as individual and as beautiful as the children themselves. Some were decorated with every color jewel you could imagine. Some were basic, with only plain black eyes.
They were hung in the main entrance of the Synagogue surrounded by white netting. It resembled the Butterfly Exhibit at the State Fair, where the little insects land on you flapping their wings with passion and purpose. There purpose on this day was based on this poem:
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 goodbye.
For seven weeks I've lived in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto
But I have found my people here.
The dandelions call to me
and the white chestnut candles 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 Friedmann 4.6. 1942
This poem is written by Pavel Friedmann, born January 7, 1921 in Prague and deported to Terezin* on April 26, 1942. He died in Oswiecim (Auschwitz) on Steptember 29, 1944. (Terezin was a Nazi concentration camp).
After we decorated butterflies, a short service was held. There was a candle lighting, readings, songs and finally, a descendant from a Holocaust victim blew the Shofar (rams horn) to replicate the sirens' wail in 1944.
The room was silent. Completely silent. There were about 150 children and about 50 adults. Quiet. Remembering.
We left with tears in our eyes and down our faces. We left with the faith that this tragedy never repeat itself again. Teach our children. Teach them to love one another, respect one another. Teach them to remember. Zachor.
