MILAN KOHOUT
It is still night waiting for the sunlight
A half-dreaming bat lady is sitting in her Wuhan lab and observing a small butterfly on the research table
Wonderful, full of all the world’s colors Even those invisible to the human eye
The first light beam of full-spectrum breaking the window glass is knocking on her head
Bat lady wakes up and walks slowly out of the building She wants to be again at home like all of us
The butterfly is following her
They both can hear the coming storm
Pavel Friedman, The Butterfly
Pencil drawing by Eva Bulova.
She was born in 1930. When she was 12, Eva was sent to the Terezin Ghetto.
Eva died in Auschwitz at the age of 14.
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.
English Translation from original Czech language.
Power of Creativity
Another Butterfly by Olga Shmuylovich
Beautiful, complex life was broken once again: destruction of Humanity called Second World War started.
In the midst of the horror, in the Terezin Jewish ghetto/concentration camp (Czech) there was a miraculous island of hope and creativity for incarcerated children – several adults-artistes, incarcerated there as well, managed to arrange for children a possibility to create, under stress and duress, thus resisting stress and duress: paintings, drawings, poems… On pieces of paper-scraps of thrown away unused Forms and used documents…
Those few children who were saved, from this hell, for their after-war lives, recalled what it meant for them - this opportunity to create – acknowledging, what an important tool, genuinely working on the survival of their spirit, was given to them, then, by the magic of Arts, by the magic of those ‘magicians’ – artists, writers, musicians, teaches… the brave souls.
Thousands of people - children and adults - sent to Terezin, perished.
Soon after the end of the WW-II, it was so happened that, hidden in the ruins of Terezin’s barracks, a chest, packed with children’s drawings and writings, was found. Who of these remarkable artists-writers-teaches - before being sent to her or his death - gathered, packed, and concealed this package: hoping that it would be found by us, living?
We may never know…
Maybe, this was my hero – artist and teacher Friedle Dicker-Brandeis – who was encouraging children of Terezin ghetto to keep creating… as she did herself… To keep spirit flying high, reaching to the stars… no matter what! Those few children who survived – wrote later their memoir notes filled with their gratitude to Friedle!..
In this chest, this miraculously discovered treasure of creativity, was found one poem which instantaneously became famous all over the human world. It was ‘’The Butterfly’’ by Pavel Friedman, created in 1942, 2 years prior to his murder in Auschwitz.
The poem was translated into tens and tens of languages. It became an inspiration for many, many works of Arts of many, many kinds.
‘’The Butterfly’’ by Pavel Friedman stays forever with Humanity, and has become an irresistible call for turning your despair into creativity, and thus NOT letting evil win over your good.
INSTEAD
Your good reaches to the stars for the sake of your own soul, and Humanity.
By Olga Shmuylovich
2022 All rights reserved.
Symbolical Meanings of the butterfly phenomenon:
Butterfly by Nicolay
Freedom
Life
Happiness
Connectivity –
“Butterfly Effect”
Rebirth
Passage of Reincarnation