The Butterfly Project

I belong to the St. John's Guild of Embroiderers'. The summer challenge 2009 was to embroider a butterfly. 1,500,00 children perished in the Holocaust and in an effort to remember them, the Holocaust Museum, Houston, Texas, is collecting 1.5 million handmade butterflies. The butterflies are scheduled for exhibit during Spring 2012. The following poem was the inspiration for making butterflies. The picture below shows some of the butterflies made by members of the guild.

The Butterfly

The last, the vey 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 ure

because itwished

to kiss the world good-bye.

For seven week 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.

Pavel Friedman, June 4, 1942

Born in prague on January 7, 1921.

Deported to the Terezin Concentration Camp on April 26, 1942.

Died in Aushchwitz on September 29, 1944.