Power of Creativity

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

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