Pavel Friedmann

Pavel Friedmann (January 7, 1921 – September 29, 1944) was a Jewish Czechoslovak poet who received posthumous fame for his poem "The Butterfly".

Biography

Friedmann was born in Prague. Little is known about his early life. When he was 21 the occupying German authorities had him transported from Prague to Theresienstadt concentration camp, in the fortress and garrison city of Terezín (German name Theresienstadt), in what is now the Czech Republic. His arrival was recorded on April 28, 1942.

On June 4, 1942 he wrote the poem “The Butterfly” on a piece of thin copy paper. Several of his poems were discovered after the liberation of Czechoslovakia and subsequently donated to the State Jewish Museum, (now the Jewish Museum in Prague).

On September 29, 1944 he was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where he perished.

The Butterfly

The text of The Butterfly was discovered at Theresienstadt after the concentration camp was liberated. It has been included in collections of children’s literature from the Holocaust era, most notably the anthology I Never Saw Another Butterfly, first published by Hana Volavková and Jiří Weil in 1959. The poem also inspired the Butterfly Project of the Holocaust Museum Houston, an exhibition where 1.5 million paper butterflies were created to symbolize the same number of children that perished in the Holocaust.

The Butterfly (English translation)

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.