The Butterfly Project

About

The Butterfly Project is part of a reflection area of the Americans and the Holocaust traveling exhibit featured at the St. Charles Parish East Regional Library in Destrehan from December 5, 2025 through January 10, 2026.

This project pays tribute to the poem “The Butterfly,” written in 1942 by Pavel Friedmann, a young prisoner at the Terezin concentration camp.

"The Butterfly" poem laments that Friedmann never saw another butterfly after being imprisoned, symbolizing his loss of freedom as well as the lost childhood of the many children who died during the Holocaust.

The original Butterfly Project was launched in 1996 by the Holocaust Memorial Museum Houston. Read more about it here.

It calls upon people to take a stand against intolerance by creating a butterfly as a reminder for courage, justice, remembrance, and hope.

Butterflies are powerful representations of life, often associated with the soul. The butterfly represents endurance, change, hope, and life to people around the world. 

Through the act of making a butterfly, you can express your feelings after viewing the Americans and the Holocaust exhibition and see how your small work contributes to the completed whole—just as small acts against injustice can ultimately create an environment where hate cannot flourish.

Historic Connection

Between 1942-1944, more than 15,000 children passed through the Terezin Concentration Camp. The vast majority of these children did not survive the Holocaust.

Some of the poetry and art created by the children at the camp were saved in suitcases and later discovered. They have been published in a book, I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942-1944.

The poems and pictures drawn by the children at Terezin illustrate the intense emotions of these displaced children, ranging from fear and sorrow to hope and courage.