Theatre Bristol proudly presents

I Never Saw Another Butterfly

Dear Educator,
We are excited that you have chosen to include I Never Saw Another Butterfly in your spring curriculum. This uplifting story is one that we can all relate to and learn from.
As you prepare for your visit, please use the enclosed materials to enhance your students experience with the play. We hope you find this information helpful. Please feel free to adapt the suggested materials for activities or discussion with your students. You are invited to make copies of this study guide for fellow teachers as well as your students.
We look forward to seeing you at the theatre and hope you enjoy your time with I Never Saw Another Butterfly.

Sincerely,
Theatre Bristol

I Never Saw Another Butterfly A Play by Celeste Raspanti

Produced by special arrangement with THE DRAMATIC PUBLISHING COMPANY of Woodstock, Illinois

School Performances: April 5, 6 and 7, 2006 at 9:30 and 11:30 a.m.

Public Performance: Sunday, April 9, 2006 at 2:30 p.m.

All performances of I Never Saw Another Butterfly will be at The Paramount Center for the Arts.

Performances run approximately 85 minutes.

Synopsis of the Story
From 1942 to 1945, more than 15,000 Jewish children passed through Terezin, a former military garrison set up as a ghetto. It soon became a station, a stopping-off place, for hundreds of thousands on their way to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.
When Terezin was liberated in May 1945, only about 100 children were alive to return to what was left of their lives, their homes and their families.
Raja Englanderova lived through it all at Terezin, teaching the children when there was nothing to teach with, helping to give them hope when there was little reason for hope.
The play I Never Saw Another Butterfly is her story. It is history as much as any play can be history, showing the best and the worst of which the human heart is capable.
The story of those years at Terezin remains in the children’s drawings and poems collected and published in the book, I Never Saw Another Butterfly : Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944 by Hana Volavkova.

About the Author
Celeste Raspanti was inspired to write the play I Never Saw Another Butterfly after coming across the book of the same name. Her special dramatic and historical interest in the Holocaust led her to bring it to the stage with I Never Saw Another Butterfly, No Fading Star and The Terezin Promise, enriching these dramas with her firsthand information of the camps from visits, oral histories and her friendship with survivors. A retired university professor, Raspanti lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she continues to write and publish.

Vocabulary
Terezin - a Nazi concentration camp during World War II
Prague - the capital of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech republic)
Auschwitz - a city in Southwest Poland, site of a Nazi concentration camp there, notorious as an extermination center
ghetto - a section of a city in which many members of some ethnic or racial group live, or to which they are restricted
barracks - a large, plain building for housing many people
Sabbath - the seventh day of the Jewish week, set aside for rest and worship (Saturday)
swastika - a design or ornament of ancient origin in the form of a Greek cross with each arm bent in a right-angle extensions, used as a Nazi emblem
bravado - pretended courage or feigned confidence
achtung - (German) attention
schnell - (German) quickly
typhoid - an infectious disease caused by drinking infected milk or water, with fever, intestinal disorders etc. as its symptoms
Rabbi - an ordained teacher of the Jewish law, usually the spiritual head of a congregation

Pre-Show Activities

1. Share the poems, paintings and drawings in the book, I Never Saw Another Butterfly, with your class. Have the students write an essay about what they think some of the poems mean.

2. On a map of Germany and Poland, mark the locations of some of the major concentration camps, especially Auschwitz.

3. Separate the class by eye color, then tell one group that they represent Jewish people in World War II. Discuss that the people who were in the concentration camps were there because they were Jewish - something that, just like eye color, they had no control over. Ask the students how they would feel if they were put in camps or put to death because of their eye color. Encourage discussion of feelings such as anger, fear, unfairness, helplessness, etc.

4. Jewish traditions are interesting and unique. Have older students research Jewish traditions and write a short essay about what they learned. For younger students, research as a class and then have each student draw a picture of something important in Jewish culture.

5. Who are some people that you love (family, friends, etc.)? What traits do they possess that you admire? How often do you tell them how you feel about them? How much would you be willing to risk to protect these people that you love if they were threatened? Would you be willing to risk losing your home, losing many of your friends, your safety or your life to help them?

6. How do you define courage? What is something that you have done or someone else has done that seems courageous to you? Explain your answer.

Post Show Activities
1. What was the strongest emotion that you felt during the show? Describe what parts of the show made you feel that way. Were you surprised at how you reacted to the play? Why or why not?

2. How would you describe hope? Which scenes in I Never Saw Another Butterfly seemed hopeful? How did this impact the show as a whole?

Critiquing a Show
What is a critique? A critique is an article or an essay that gives a critical evaluation of a piece of work (such as a play or book).

A critic is a person who examines a piece of work and offers his or her opinion (personal thoughts) as to its value.

What was your opinion of I Never Saw Another Butterfly? What did you like or dislike about his production? Would you recommend this production to anyone else? Why or why not? Use a separate piece of paper to write your opinion.

Terezin:
A Model Concentration Camp
The village of Terezin (known as Theresienstadt to the Nazis), in what was then known as Czechoslovakia, was a walled fortress built by Emperor Joseph II of Austria for his mother Maria Theresa. The surroundings were lovely. It was built on green meadows, and nearby there were fruit trees, tall poplars, and rolling hills that almost looked blue in the distance. It was chosen by Hitler to become a model concentration camp that he would show to the Red Cross to mislead them into thinking that the Jews were being treated well. With this in mind, he sent a large number of artists, musicians, and other performers to Terezin.

Weeks before the Red Cross inspection, Jews were forced to work around the clock cleaning, painting, and planting flowers to make the town look more presentable. A large transport of sick and elderly people was sent to a death camp and a batch of healthy, plump new children was brought in to replace them. The many artists and musicians interred at the camp were warned to put on wonderful shows, concerts, and exhibits during the inspection or they would be beaten and killed. The children’s opera Brundibar (Czech slang for “Bumblebee”) with music by Hans Krasa and lyrics by Adolf Hoffmeister, was performed 55 times by the children of Terezin. Music from the opera is featured in this production.

The Red Cross seemed to be completely fooled by the Nazi’s clever cover-up. They did not know that the daily menu for Jews consisted of bread and unsweetened black coffee for breakfast; watery soup for lunch; and soup with dry bread for dinner. The Red Cross did not see the filthy barracks with the sick, dying, and dead prisoners. They did not know that Terezin was the stopping-off place for the Jews who were going to be slaughtered. They were not shown the storehouses of jewels and possessions stolen from Jews who came to Terezin. Of course, they were not taken to death camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka, which were dominated by gas chambers and crematoriums.
The Children of Terezin
The greatest tragedy of Terezin surrounded the children. From 1942 to 1945, more than 15,000 Jewish children passed through Terezin. Most were orphans or children who had been forcibly separated from their parents, and they were housed in huge barracks, 20 to 30 children in a room. A clandestine school was immediately organized, with classes held in the same rooms where children slept and ate. There were just a few books, and teachers changed quite frequently as some were sent off to Auschwitz to be put to death. Because emphasis on education was part of their original culture, most of the children received some kind of education, although it had been forbidden by the Nazis.

Older children (14 and up) were forced to work in the fields, building roads, digging ditches, or cleaning barracks. The younger children secretly studied, wrote poems, and drew pictures on all kinds of scraps of paper. They also wrote letters and journals about their lives.

The children witnessed horrendous things in Terezin—people being tortured and murdered, or dying of starvation and disease. They drew these things in their pictures and wrote about them in their poetry. Sometimes the children remembered lovely things from their lives before Hitler, and they tried to look outside the camp to the green meadows and hills. Some of the poems and drawings contained these beautiful visions of home, family, and escape. Many of the children, however, felt that they had been selected for death. The tension caused by this realization showed in many of the children’s drawings, poetry, and journal accounts.

Sometimes children stayed at Terezin three months, sometimes half a year, and those that were lucky stayed even a little while longer. When these children left Terezin, they were most likely taken to extermination camps like Auschwitz. Of the more than 15,000 children who passed through Terezin, only about 100 of them survived the Holocaust.

Brief Holocaust Chronology

January 30—Hitler becomes Chancellor (Prime Minister) of Germany

September 15—Nuremberg Laws established: Jews are no longer considered German citizens

November 9-10—Kristallnacht results in destruction of Jewish synagogues, businesses and homes

November 15—Jewish children excluded from German schools

January 30—Hitler says that World War will bring annihilation of Jewish race in Europe

September 1—Germany invades Poland, starting World War II

January 25—Auschwitz chosen as site of new Nazi concentration camp

September-November—Theresienstadt (Terezin) ghetto and concentration camp established

December 7—Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; United States declares war on Japan

January 20—Wannsee Conference details the “Final Solution”

March—First transports of Jews arrive at Auschwitz

April 19-May 16—Uprising, revolt and destruction of Warsaw Ghetto

June—Red Cross visit Terezin

June 6—D-Day; Allied forces invade Normandy

January –May—Allied troops liberate concentration camps

April 30—Hitler commits suicide

May 7-8—VE Day, or Victory in Europe Day; Germany surrenders

Poetry Analysis

The title of I Never Saw Another Butterfly was derived from a poem written by Pavel Friedmann in Terezin in 1942. The text that follows is from the stage version of the poem, which has slight modifications from the original text. Read the poem, and answer the following questions.

I never saw another butterfly …
The last, the very last,
so richly brightly, dazzling yellow.
Perhaps if the sun’s tears 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 my people here.
The dandelions call to me,
And the white chestnut candles in the
court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
That butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live here in the ghetto.

Personification is a literary device that attributes human characteristics to inanimate or abstract objects. Give two examples of personification in this poem. How does personification strengthen the images that the poet is creating?
What other examples of figurative (metaphorical) language/literary devices do you find in this poem (alliteration, assonance, repetition, etc.)? Which literary device has the most impact on you, as the reader? Explain your answer.
Have you ever found yourself full of feelings that you thought were best expressed through art? Poetry is the art of language, and the organization of words and images can provoke a powerful emotional response, both for the reader and the writer. As an exercise, write a short poem about a time or an experience when you felt that life truly was beautiful. Use at least two types of figurative language to create your imagery.