Butterfly Boy Bronze Statue unveiled at Jane Bancroft Cook Library (Florida), January 28, 2010
Sculptor, Sidney Fagin.
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I NEVER SAW ANOTHER BUTTERLY
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.
– Pavel Friedmann
Pavel Friedmann was born in Prague on January 7, 1921. He was deported to Terezin on April 26, 1942 and later to Auschwitz, where he died on September 29, 1944. At least 960,000 Jews were killed in Auschwitz. Other victims included approximately 74,000 Poles, 21,000 Roma (Gypsies), and 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war; and 10,000-15,000 members of other nationalities (Soviet civilians, Czechs, Yugoslavs, French, Germans, and Austrians). Women, men, children.
While it is common to say “never again” … meaning that event we refer to as THE Holocaust … it’s important to remember that there are Holocausts (genocides) in process now and there have been many in our history … think of Armenia, Rawanda, the Congo, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, North Korea, the Kurdish peoples, Syria, Palestine … Time and past time to put an end to it …
I like to remember the lesson taught by Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892-1984) – a victim of the Nazis – and passed on to us. There is some controversy over the many versions of his “First they came …” It is often presented as a poem. The great jazz musician, Charles Mingus, recites a version before his musical composition, Don’t Let It Happen Here. In any event, the point is made: political apathy is dangerous.
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out-
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out-
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out-
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me-
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.– Pastor Martin Niemoller
– Jamie Dedes
Photo credits: Sidney Fagin – New College of Florida; German postage stamp with sketch of Pastor Martin Niemoeller (licensing status unclear ) via Wikipedia
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