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Butterfly Project provides Holocaust lesson

4 min read
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Harry Funk / The Almanac

Brooke Christiansen shows her contribution to the 1.5 million-piece goal of the Butterfly Project.

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Harry Funk / The Almanac

Sumanth Sanakkayala works on his butterfly.

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Harry Funk / The Almanac

Sisters MaryEllen, left, and Caroline Kobeski work on their butterflies.

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Harry Funk / The Almanac

Marissa Noschese works on her butterfly.

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By Harry Funk/Staff writer/hfunk@thealmanac.net

Ellie Shanholtzer works with brother Danny with his butterfly.

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Harry Funk / The Almanac

Sisters Dina, left, and Maya Leyzarovich work on their butterflies.

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Harry Funk / The Almanac

Joining in the butterfly-painting activity is Colleen Miles, youth services librarian.

Children’s colorful drawings of butterflies, fairies and other fanciful flying creatures should be good for some smiles.

The pictures that Jackie Shimshoni showed recently at Upper St. Clair Township Library are a different story: They come from the Nazi concentration camp in the Czech city of Terezín, and many of the young artists didn’t survive World War II.

“These butterflies were this idea of beauty and joy, and there’s life on the other side of these camps and this persecution,” explained Shimshoni, Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh marketing and education associate.

The drawings serve as inspiration for the Butterfly Project, which has the goal of people throughout the world painting 1.5 million ceramic butterflies, one for each child who died in the Holocaust. Upper St. Clair is one of 23 libraries in Allegheny County participating in the project this summer.

“I think everybody should know what these people went through, and we should remember them,” Briella Lucadamo, who is ready to start eighth grade at St. Louise de Marillac School, said as she wrapped up painting her butterfly, adding the word “hope.”

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Nishma Ghimire works on her butterfly.

“It really helps you appreciate what you have in life,” she continued. “These children never got to see their future. They never got to do certain things that we have the opportunity to do. And I think it’s our job to live out our lives in honor of them and try to do our best to become what they could never become.”

A dozen other youngsters and a handful of adults joined her in contributing toward the Butterfly Project’s ultimate goal. About 300,000 have been completed so far, according to Shimshoni.

She presented a substantial amount of background prior to the participants starting to paint, furthering their understanding about the Holocaust and providing information about what the Terezín camp represented and why children’s drawings from there exist.

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Briella Lucadamo has inscribed her butterfly with “hope.”

“Terezín was established because the Nazis knew there were going to be people who wanted to know: What was happening to all these Jewish people who had these stars put on them, and then they started to disappear?” she said, referencing Hitler’s edict for them to wear the Star of David for identification, or face execution.

In response to rumors about extermination camps, the Nazis in June 1944 invited Danish Red Cross and International Red Cross representatives to Terezín, as a ruse to demonstrate how well internees throughout the Third Reich supposedly were being treated.

“Now, they weren’t being treated amazingly,” Shimshoni explained. “It wasn’t like a five-star resort. But they were being fed a little bit more, and they had children perform art pieces and things like that. Even though they would have them do all these wonderful artistic things, when it was all said and done, a lot of the kids were sent off to the other camps.”

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Luke An works on his butterfly.

During her presentation, Shimshoni showed slides representing the diversity of today’s children from throughout the world.

“Things like the Holocaust happen when we focus on those differences,” she said. “Instead of focusing on how are we all the same, what makes us all beautiful, what makes us all special, there are people who get very fixated on, well, someone’s skin color is different. Or someone lives in a different place. Or in this case, someone has a different religion.”

Colleen Miles, Upper St. Clair youth services librarian, said that one of her goals is to provide programs with lasting impact.

“All Allegheny County libraries were given this opportunity, and we jumped at it,” she said. “I thought this was a really good opportunity to see the wider world and be a part of something so big: our little butterflies to go to this bigger goal of remembrance.”

For more information about the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, visit hcofpgh.org.

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Harry Funk / The Almanac

Jackie Shimshoni of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh discusses the Butterfly Project.

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