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51st out of 386 books
—
1,416 voters
...I never saw another butterfly...
Fifteen thousand children under the age of fifteen passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp. Fewer than 100 survived. In these poems and pictures drawn by the young inmates, we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their hopes and fears, their courage and optimism. 60 color illustrations.
Paperback, 128 pages
Published
March 15th 1994
by Schocken
(first published December 27th 1987)
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Apr 26, 2008
James M. Madsen, M.D.
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
nonfiction,
history
I read this book just after visiting the site of the Dachau concentration camp, and although this book is about Theresienstadt, not Dachau, the two experiences were definitely synergistic for me. The book is really several books in one: a) introductory material and an epilogue; b) a collection of poems written by children in Theresienstadt; c) an interspersed collection of children's drawings from art classes (taught by, among others, a gifted artist who later perished in another camp); d) a sec...more
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Poetry comes in many different forms, I had thought I had read it all. Until I read, "I never saw another butterfly".This book is composed of many beautifully illustrated children's pictures, along side a wonderfully written poem or writing. The children writing these poems were from the Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. In just those two years the author states that a "total of 15,000 children under the age of fifteen passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp, less than 100 survived"....more
Recently reading about the Houston Holocaust Museum's planned 2013 exhibition titled The Butterfly Project, I read for the first time Pavel Friedmann's poem The Butterfly" in which he remarks that he has seen no butterfly in the ghetto though some of the beauty of the natural world insists on itself even there.
The ghetto is the Terezin Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia. Terezin was a bizarre experiment of the Third Reich, which set it up as a place to hold Jewish artists, intellectuals, and...more
The ghetto is the Terezin Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia. Terezin was a bizarre experiment of the Third Reich, which set it up as a place to hold Jewish artists, intellectuals, and...more
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This is a book full of thousands of illustrations followed by poems, of those who most likely have passed. Children, adolescence and adults all writing about one thing; the day that changed there lives. But what was that holding in the grip of its palms?... A butterfly. That will soon fly away into the night sky to start a new life.But having difficulties on the way, and getting through tough roadblocks. There butterflies certainly did fly away... fly away to the people they'll always love; fami...more
the PC thing would probably be for me to give this 5 stars.
The context is tragic and moving-- poems and pictures done by kids in a WWII "model ghetto" (where people died in their own excrement and hundreds were shipped out to concentration camps daily). With a couple of exceptions, the poems themselves weren't as moving for me as I had expected they might be...
The context is tragic and moving-- poems and pictures done by kids in a WWII "model ghetto" (where people died in their own excrement and hundreds were shipped out to concentration camps daily). With a couple of exceptions, the poems themselves weren't as moving for me as I had expected they might be...
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A very powerful historical record of children's poems, writings, and art from the Theresienstadt concentraton camp in Czechoslovakia. Every emotion is contained in here - good, bad, ugly. As you would expect, one is left with an immense sense of grief, and shame, over this one slice of Hitler's final solution, as very few of the kids lived.
I knew very little about Theresienstadt before I picked up this book - Auschwitz being the rock star that is most mentioned in books. So the forewords, epilog...more
I knew very little about Theresienstadt before I picked up this book - Auschwitz being the rock star that is most mentioned in books. So the forewords, epilog...more
I grew up with the first edition of this book. My parents had (and still have) a hard bound copy, and my sister and I would peruse the pictures and read the poems about once a year. I was born in the 1960's, and World War II was still relatively fresh in the hearts and minds, though Vietnam was soon to be in the forefront. The poems and pictures were sometimes difficult to read and browse, but they always reminded us of what had happened to thousands upon thousands of children our age. The book...more
This is a collection of artwork and poetry created by children who lived in Terezin concentration camp in Poland during WWII. An introduction by Chaim Potok enumerates the history of Terezin from its creation in 1780 as a fortress to its days as a concentration camp. The Nazi’s used Terezin as a “model” camp to show the Red Cross how human their operations were. Of course, it was all a lie. Of the 15,000 children who passed through Terezin, only 100 survived. Terezin was not a death camp; many p...more
Nov 01, 2009
Valerie
added it
Otto Frank recalled that during his arrest, one of the Green Police found his foot locker from his days in the German Army. The Green Policeman asked him why he didn't just turn himself in, and he would have been sent to Terezin. "As if," Otto fumed "Terezin was a country club".
If the Franks HAD been sent to Terezin, the group of children in this book would have included at least Anne Frank, and possibly her sister Margot.
Other people who were sent to Terezin were the true inventor of aspirin, a...more
If the Franks HAD been sent to Terezin, the group of children in this book would have included at least Anne Frank, and possibly her sister Margot.
Other people who were sent to Terezin were the true inventor of aspirin, a...more
I chose this as the "award winning" book to review. This book contains poems and drawings done by children in the Terrezin Concentration camp. Reading their firsthand poetic accounts of camp life, homesickness, and their families provided emotional testimonials more powerful than any historical fiction pieces I had read from this time period. The illustrations were reprinted beautifully and showed the sense of hope, creativity, and life that all of the children possessed. The book is put togethe...more
Everyone knows of the atrocities that the Nazi's perpetrated during the Holocaust, but how many people stop and think about the children that were in the concentration camps? Or what they had to bear? Shocking as it is the children at Terezin were allowed to have some time together, with a former art teacher, to sketch and create, and to basically have a form of art therapy for all of the horrors they were seeing (not that the Nazi's realized that therapy was occurring.) This book captures some...more
I Never Saw Another Butterfly is a bunch of poems and drawings that have been put together to create one story that tells you of a concentration camp, Terezin, from 1942-1944. These stories and poems were written by children and young teenagers, whom many perished at the camp, about what they missed and how life was in Terezin. THe children's voices truely shine through their writing and really proves how awful and tramatic life was during the Holocaust. The drawings and paintings, also done by...more
~I’d like to go away alone
Where there are other nicer people,
Somewhere into the far unknown
There, where no one kills another
Maybe more of us,
A thousand strong,
Will reach this goal
Before too long~
This poem by Alena Synkove and her artwork is just one of dozens of poems and paintings created by the children of Terezin Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia from 1942 to 1944 featured in this riveting collection. They poignantly tell and show what these children saw, felt, and experienced, “leaving a...more
Where there are other nicer people,
Somewhere into the far unknown
There, where no one kills another
Maybe more of us,
A thousand strong,
Will reach this goal
Before too long~
This poem by Alena Synkove and her artwork is just one of dozens of poems and paintings created by the children of Terezin Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia from 1942 to 1944 featured in this riveting collection. They poignantly tell and show what these children saw, felt, and experienced, “leaving a...more
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I first heard about this book when I was judging a speech meet and one of the students did a Serious Oral Interpretation with the poem "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" as a lead-in.
At the time the book did not seem to be available in the United States - at least I couldn't find a copy. I visited Terezin in 1999 and bought the book at that time. It has since become available in the States.
The horror being incomprehensible, the drawings and poems allow the voices of the children of Terezin to be he...more
At the time the book did not seem to be available in the United States - at least I couldn't find a copy. I visited Terezin in 1999 and bought the book at that time. It has since become available in the States.
The horror being incomprehensible, the drawings and poems allow the voices of the children of Terezin to be he...more
I have not finished this book yet, but all of the poems I have read from it so far are very moving and emotional. They are not very lengthy but you do get a picture of what the children must have been through during their time at the concentration camps. All of the illustrations are beautiful and fit very well with the content of the poems. I would definitely use this piece when talking about World War Two to give students a taste of life for these children during the war.
This book containing poems, prose and art by children in Nazi Camps during World War II, was beautiful and heartbreaking. It gives a more intimate look at the workings of a child's mind as they faced unimaginable terror.
This book also shed light on a wonderful woman who became their art teacher. She fought for supplies and sought to empower the children with voices that might otherwise have stayed silent. A truly inspirational and worthwhile read.
This book also shed light on a wonderful woman who became their art teacher. She fought for supplies and sought to empower the children with voices that might otherwise have stayed silent. A truly inspirational and worthwhile read.
Out of more than fifteen thousand children that passed through Terezin concentration camp, not even one hundred survived.
Those children had an opportunity to write poetry and draw thanks to a few enlightened teachers who scrounged around for materials and gave those children an opportunity to express themselves in a creative and therapeutic way.
I bought the book at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem, probably because I was so moved by the children's memorial.
The book is also very moving becaus...more
Those children had an opportunity to write poetry and draw thanks to a few enlightened teachers who scrounged around for materials and gave those children an opportunity to express themselves in a creative and therapeutic way.
I bought the book at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem, probably because I was so moved by the children's memorial.
The book is also very moving becaus...more
Wow! This collection of children's poems is incredibly powerful. Each poem is written by a different child from the ghetto, Terezin, on all aspects of their lives. The illustrations are also from real children in the ghetto. In as many cases as possible, hometowns, death dates, and other information is included at the end of the book. Selections from this book would give a unique perspective to teaching children about the Holocaust.
Heartbreaking.
The saddest part wasn't the longing for home or depictions of cruelty they children witnessed and suffered. It was the endnotes. Each contained a bare handful of facts about the child artists and poets: name, date and place of birth, date of deportation to Terezin, date of transport to Auschwitz, and the date of death. Almost none of the children whose art fills this book survived. A bottle filled with the light of extinguished stars might give one the same sense of hopelessness o...more
The saddest part wasn't the longing for home or depictions of cruelty they children witnessed and suffered. It was the endnotes. Each contained a bare handful of facts about the child artists and poets: name, date and place of birth, date of deportation to Terezin, date of transport to Auschwitz, and the date of death. Almost none of the children whose art fills this book survived. A bottle filled with the light of extinguished stars might give one the same sense of hopelessness o...more
every year in school since the 7th grade we have done some kind of project or study of the holocaust, and this year in 2009 we did our one act play over the holocaust (i never saw another butterfly) that was written and based on the pictures and poems in this book. it was very touching and i recommend it to anyone and everyone who has any kind of heart.
Children unknowingly on their way to Auschwitz revealed their thoughts and feelings in words and pictures as they endured Nazi treatment in their "model" camp.
This is such an interesting and cool picture book. I would show this to my kids as something extra just to be exposed to more information and a young perspective on the holocaust.
This is such an interesting and cool picture book. I would show this to my kids as something extra just to be exposed to more information and a young perspective on the holocaust.
This book consists of a collection of poems written by the children who were imprisoned during the Holocaust. In the classroom it would be a good exercise to have students write their own personal poems about what they would have felt if they had been in a similar situation during the 1930s and 1940s.
What a powerful and bittersweet book. The artwork and words document a longing for a more carefree world than the nightmare one these children are forced to inhabit. I am touched by their beauty and devastated by their future. Of the 15,000 thousand innocents that passed through the gates of Terezin, only 100 came back....
How am I supposed to rate this book? It's so pretty but tragic, childish but oh so sad; this is possibly the saddest book I have ever owned. Each page brings tears to my eyes, and I can't bear to open it often, despite the wonderful quality of its paper, the colourful images, the amazing words...
An extremely horrible book. Horrible because of how powerful and hard it was to read. For some of the children, those were some of their last thoughts and pictures that they every wrote or drew. It was organized very well and was one of the hardest books I have ever read. A very good book.
I read this book to prepare lessons for my 6th grade classroom. We were learning about the Terezin Ghetto that was open during WWII in preparation for attending the play I Never Saw Another Butterfly. The book is a collection of poems and visual artwork that were done by Jewish prisoners who were held in this ghetto, mostly by children. The history of the ghetto is amazing and something I was never aware of until I read this book. My students were silent as they read and responded to the poems....more
Beautifully wrought volume. Again, a harrowing account of Holocaust experiences from the perspective of different children, communicated through poems and drawings. Touches an emotional chord, and manages to convey feelings of hope amidst the devastation of that time.
Touching original visuals from children in Terezin who unknowingly left for us their revealed thoughts and feelings in words and pictures as they endured Nazi treatment in their "model" camp. For most...it's all that is left of them.
My college choir director introduced us to a song series that was based on three of the poems in this book. You will be both inspired and moved to the brink of tears after reading the stories of these children. Fantastic!!!
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