I Never Saw Another Butterfly

It is difficult to read and to feel the pain of the children housed temporarily in Terezin Concentration Camp who wrote poems and shared stories of their experiences before they were killed at the hands of the barbaric Nazi regime.

Almost all of the poems brought immediate tears. Most interesting is the fact that though this is primarily the horrific experiences of the children who were barbarically killed, it is also true that there were poems and stories of hope and optimism.

For us book collectors, some books appeal to the eye and the hand, our sense of design and our admiration for the crafts of papermaking, printing, binding. Most books probably appeal to the mind and perhaps the heart through the message they communicate. But a few—how shall I say this? I would like to say they speak to our souls, lifting our spirits to new heights. But it might be more accurate to say they grab our guts and won’t let go.

And rarely, very rarely, a book does all three.

I never saw another butterfly (McGraw-Hill, 1976) is just such a book. The 1976 edition is beautifully designed. The fabric used in binding is a cross between burlap and linen, tactilely pleasing. The typography, the reproduction of children’s art show more work, the layout of the book and the page design are all examples of adept bookmaking. Each two-page spread stands as a work of art, carefully balancing white space with art work and text, no more than one passage per page.

The message is not overstated, and that makes it even more powerful. The subtitle alone tells the story: Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezín Concentration Camp 1942-1944. The poems and the drawings bear the message eloquently from start to finish. In the back, in very small, unobtrusive type, there are catalogs of the art and writings, and an epilogue: “In Czechoslovakia, there is a strange place called Terezín, some 60 kilometers from Prague . . . . During the war years Terezín was a place of famine and of fear. Somewhere far away, in Berlin, men in uniforms had held meetings. . . .” A simple statistic on the last page of the text is repeated on the end paper: “A total of around 15,000 children under the age of 15 passed through Terezín. Of these, around 100 came back.”

The art on the dust jacket of the book is representative: a collage of paper cut-outs in bright colors, on tinted paper. It depicts a landscape, the Central Mountains of Czechoslovakia. The simple note in the catalog tells us that Eva Steinová was born in Prague on September 4, 1931, and deported to Terezín on December 14, 1941.” It ends, as most of the entries end, “She died at Oswiecim on October 23, 1944.”

The children’s art work, making use of bright colors and whatever materials were available to them, draws upon their experience in Terezín and their memories of home. There are barracks, with numbered bunk beds; the figure of an SS man; a queue for food; men with a stretcher and a figure with a bandage; a ghetto guard and a detail from a drawing called “Execution”; and a long, long freight train with people. But there are also a child’s hands, a house with a garden, iris, children dancing, many fantasies—and butterflies, butterflies, butterflies.

“The Flower Seller” is simply charming. A silhouette of the seller, her stand, trees, a house, and the vessel of flowers is cut out of bookkeeping papers, probably discarded from an office. It is pasted on a red background. Helena Mändlová was probably eleven or twelve. She died on December 18, 1943 in Oswiecim.

The poems have been translated into English, but the childlike images are vivid and meaningful. One is called simply “Birdsong.” It begins,

He doesn’t know the world at all
Who stays in his nest and doesn’t go out.
He doesn’t know what birds know best
Nor what I want to sing about,
That the world is full of loveliness.

There is an excerpt from the prose of 15-year-old Petr Fischl:

“. . . We got used to standing in line at 7 o’clock in the morning, at 12 noon and again at seven o’clock in the evening. We stood in a long queue with a plate in our hand, in which they ladled a little warmed-up water with a salty or a 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. . . .”

Petr, we are told, perished in Oswiecim in 1944.

And then there is the poem by Pavel Friedmann, from which the title of the book is taken. It begins and ends,

The last, the very last,
So richly, brightly, dazzlingly yellow.
Perhaps if the sun’s tears would sing
against a white stone . . .

. . . . .

That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live in here,
In the ghetto.

Yes, some books are more than mere books; their words speak more profoundly than mere words. show less

This is such a powerful book. It contains the drawings (full color illustrations) and poetry of children interred at the Terezin concentration camp. I had first come across it while researching materials to use for a history class I taught and this was used for The Butterfly Project, run by the Houston Holocaust Museum (I think it was out of Houston), and I ended up ordering a class set. It's a thin book, but it will absolutely tear your heart apart, knowing that most of these children would not survive their ordeal. I highly recommend this to everyone.

Beautiful, yet heartbreaking, this book contains the children’s drawings and poems from Terezin Concentration camp. Between 1942 and 1944 over fifteen thousand children passed through Terezin. Art became a way of therapy as the children found ways to express their hurt and frustration.

This book is a collection of poems and drawings by Jewish children who lived in the Terezin Concentration Camp during the Holocaust. There they had a secret art class held by Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. These paintings and drawings allowed the children to take their minds off the sadness, death, and destruction all around them. The art class was an outlet for many of these children but it brought me sadness knowing that many of these children died. It is a shame so many innocent lives where lost!

What an eye opener book! Wow, just wow!! I believe this is the saddest book, filled with poetry, that i have ever read and also ever owned. Almost every page brought tears in my eyes because how can you do that to a young child and even an adult. I don't see how the kids have to live through that tragic event of the concentration camps but I am so glad that some of them are alive and well. As soon as I read the first poem I was just balling out crying. The title really hit home because I never saw another butterfly, is like not seeing light or something beautiful ever again. This book of poetry was just powerful, beautiful and sends an inspiring message to its readers.

This is a recount of children's expression of emotions while in the Terezin Concentration camp. Art became the way these children coped with what was going on around them. This is a great book to use when discussing the Holocaust. I love the use of real poems and pictures. I think children would be able to relate to these children. I would use this for third grade on up.