"The
Butterfly"
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 d
andelions 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.
Pavel Friedman 4.6.1942
This poem is preserved in
typewritten copy on thin copy paper in the collection of poetry by the poet, which was donated to the State
Jewish Museum during its documentation campaign. Pavel Freidmann was born on January 7, 1921, in
Prague and deported to Terezin on April 26, 1942. He died in
Aushchwitz on September 29, 1944.