The Butterfly

 For Holocaust Memorial Day, this little poem, which was discovered at Theresienstadt when the camp was liberated. Written on a sheet of thin copy paper, it was the work of a young Czech Jew who was admitted to Theresienstadt on 28 April 1942 and murdered at Auschwitz on 29 September 1944, when he was 23 years old. He wrote 'The Butterfly' shortly after his arrival at Theresienstadt. This translation is one of many, and quite literal. (The butterfly in question is most likely a Brimstone.)

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.