I Never Saw Another Butterfly - ATC

"I Never Saw Another Butterfly" is my new ATC Swap on Swap-Bot.com. This project was created in an effort to remember the children of the holocaust. The phrase "I never saw another butterfly" is from the poem written by Jewish boy Pavel Friedman, who was deported to the Terezin Concentration Camp on April 26, 1942 and then died in Aushchwitz on Sept. 29, 1944. The rule of the swap: we suppose to make 2 or more butterflies: one to send to our partner and one or more send to the Holocaust Museum Houston Butterfly Project Education Department 5401 Caroline St. Houston, TX 77004 USA

This is my card

In the beginning of the project- FRONT

BACK

DISTRESSING

FINAL LOOK

I've printed a map of Terezin Concentration Camp as main pattern of the card. The body of the butterfly carries a number 15000 - that is the number of children who went through this Concentration Camp in 1942-1944... Only 100 kids survived....

Distressing was done by real fire - even the smell of burned paper is part of this look. The card is very monochromatic. Under the butterfly's wings I have a simplistic drawings of numerous eyes - they represent those kids who never saw another butterfly. The thickness of the card has been achieved by layering seven layers of burned paper.

I know it is not a pretty butterfly but nothing was pretty about that time and our goal today is not to forget.......

Here is an original poem written by that Jewish boy:

The last, the very 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 sure

because it wished

to kiss the world good-bye.

For seven weeks 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.....