I Never Saw Another Butterfly

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I Never Saw Another Butterfly
OCLC
26214051

I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942–1944 is a collection of works of

Auschwitz. The works were compiled after World War II by Czech art historian Hana Volavková, the only curator of the Jewish Museum in Prague to survive the Holocaust.[1] Where known, the fate of each young author is listed. Most died prior to the camp being liberated.[2]
The original Czech edition was published in 1959 for the State Jewish Museum in Prague; the first English edition was published in 1964 by the McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Terezin

During

Auschwitz and other extermination camps.[3] At the end of the war there were 17,247 survivors.[4]

Part of the fortification (Small Fortress) served as the largest Gestapo prison in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, separated from the ghetto. Around 90,000 people went through it, and 2,600 of those died there.

It was liberated on May 9, 1945 by the Soviet Army.

The Play

I Never Saw Another Butterfly is also the name of a full length play and a one-act version by Celeste Raspanti.[5] She based the play on a book of poetry and drawings made by the children of Terezin. The play centers on Raja Englanderova, one of the children who survived Terezin, and her family, friends, and classmates. She shares her story of living in the concentration camp, while retaining a world filled with butterflies and flowers with other children in the camp. Raspanti's play was adapted into a musical by Joseph Robinette and E. A. Alexander.[6]

The song cycle

In 1968 Jewish-Canadian composer Srul Irving Glick wrote the Holocaust-themed song cycle I Never Saw Another Butterfly for mezzosoprano (contralto) and orchestra or piano.[7] The songs are based on children's poems from the concentration camp at Theresienstadt (1942–44).[8][9]

The cycle consists of 6 songs:

  1. To Olga
  2. Yes thats the way things are
  3. The little mouse
  4. On a sunny evening
  5. Narrative
  6. The butterfly.

In 1972 the songs were issued on LP (with Maureen Forrester and John Newmark) by Canadian label Select (CC-15.073).[10]

ALSO

References

External links