The genesis of this project began many years ago, perhaps thirty or more, with the faint flutter of the wings of . . .  a butterfly.  A book had recently been published presenting some of the many poems and drawings that had been found after the end of WWII in a children’s barrack in Terezin, a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia.  The book was called “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” and the contents were haunting. Voices of children filled with hope and longing, struggling to make sense of their world gone awry.
    Compelled by both the beauty and sadness of the stories told, I developed a workshop production, for adults.  It had a brief exposure and then waited patiently on a fading yellow legal pad for 25 years.  Over time, --and it did take time, -- it became possible to talk about this essentially missing chapter in our children’s history books. The butterfly took flight, once again, -- this time with a story woven through, music to help tell the story, rear projected slides to exhibit the art work and attribution for the young artists who created the colors and words.
        At about the same time that Pushcart began presenting this play, “The Last, The Very Last . . . Butterfly,” for students throughout New Jersey where Holocaust Education was now mandated, something was also happening in the Czech Republic, in Terezin.  This ghetto, where butterflies could survive only in a drawing or a poem, was designated as a memorial place for those who died there during WWII. The grounds and buildings were being restored and a museum and exhibits were being developed.  Among the renovations was a loft on the top floor of one of the barracks where the children, many of whom are represented in our play, often performed for recreation.
         I had the opportunity to visit this Attic Theatre three years ago and was introduced to the Director, Dr. Munk.  It seemed that Holocaust Education is needed in the Czech Republic just as much and in the same way as it is needed here in the United States. The Terezin programming department of the Museum was looking for ways to bring school groups to visit Terezin and our play appeared to be a perfect attraction. The process of implementing this journey was launched and many phone calls, faxes, emails, site visits, script translations, set modifications and fund raising campaigns later, Pushcart was set and ready to go. A very special journey to Terezin and other parts of the Czech Republic took place from June 8 to June 16, 2002.  Highlights of that journey are on the following pages.

Pushcart Players’ Journey To The Czech Republic

       

On June 8, 2002 Pushcart Players departed for a very special journey to Terezin and other parts of the Czech Republic for the purpose of performing our Holocaust Education play, “The Last, The Very Last . . . Butterfly” in several locations.  Here are some highlights of that voyage.

Saturday evening, June 8, a group of ten people from Pushcart depart for the Czech Republic. Fourteen hours later (a five hour layover in Zurich) we arrive with little or no sleep in Prague.   Miraculously, all of our nine Pushcart set, tech and costume bags arrive intact along with our individual luggage.  We depart for Terezin, the garrison town which is the setting of our play, “The Last, The Very Last . . . Butterfly.”

As we approach, we begin to see landmarks that are in the children’s drawings we know so well –a bell tower that illustrates the line in our play, “in the black town now”. The barracks, just as we imagine them from the art work. The streets, now deserted, resonate with the pain and suffering that took place here, for a time.  And the railroad tracks, built by the labor of inmates, to send transports to places far worse than Terezin, like Auchwitz or Bergen-Belsen are chilling.

We stay in the Youth Center, at one time a barracks, now nicely re-furbished to serve as a Youth Hostile and Dining Hall.  And on the uppermost floor we find the Attic Theatre!  The very place where concerts and performances were sometimes held during those years between 1942 and 1944, often presented by the children, so close to our hearts, in our play.  The place where we will perform our piece, “The Last, The Very Last Butterfly” tomorrow, June 10.

In the meantime, dinner is ladled out assembly line style.  Though far more abundant, it is a reminder of  a segment by Petr Fishl in our play where he tells of standing “in a long queue, where they ladled out a few potatoes or some watery soup”

Monday, June 10 –Early call in the Attic Theatre to unpack and assemble the set and sound equipment.  Preparing for a 1 p.m. show, we are astonished to hear that students will arrive at 9:30 a.m. for a 10:00 performance.  Working deftly and double time, assembling, sound checking, warming up, we all agree that perhaps it is for the best that we have less time to dwell and become emotionally distracted, but rather have the need to stay focused on the task at hand.

It is time to perform.  And an incredible performance it is, reaching emotional depths and levels as never before.  We inhabit the world of our characters, understanding injustice and tyranny in a new way.  The words and drawings gain added meaning that will inform our work whenever and wherever it is done.  The yearning, hopes and dreams for a better world become our hopes and dreams. We capture our audience and ourselves.  In the words of Elie Weisel, it is “a precious moment in time.”

Not yet noon, and much accomplished, we have far more in store before ending this memorable day.  Greetings and, a special tour of Terezin by our guide, Roland. – The artwork, the buildings, the background, and oh, so powerful, the original pencil drawings by the children we know so well from our play. A memorial plaque of Josef Pollack. The crematorium, the gravesites, the tree planted as a seedling by the children, nurtured by their rations of water, now full grown.  We light candles and say a prayer in their memory.  They are not forgotten.

And now, onto our bus, down a winding country road.  Rolling hills and green fields. As far as the eye can see.  We are in Lidice –a small town until June 10, 1942 when the Nazis burned it to the ground.  It is the 60th anniversary of the day the Nazis rounded up and shot all the men in the town square, gassed most of the women, sent others to work camps, and then rounded up the children for varying fates, mostly death. A severe example of what would happen to anyone who did not comply with Hitler’s politics.

A long walk across one of these fields as something comes into focus. It is . . . a sculpture. 81 children, in bronze.  The children of Lidice, as last remembered, rounded up in the town square. Innocent, weeping in the light rain, huddled, caring for their younger siblings. Beautiful children.  Haunting. Devastating.

Tuesday, June 11 – It is the first sunshine we have seen.  Perfect for sight seeing in Prague.  We begin by visiting the grave of Franz Kafka.  On to the church, the castle and the descending steps to the Charles Bridge, breath taking views and the hourly chimes of the Astronomical Clock Tower.

Wednesday June 12 – Yes, a 6:15 a.m. call and on the road to Klatovy , a small town in the south western portion of the Czech Republic where we will do two performances in two schools.  Our Klatovy contact has arranged for us to pick up a friend and colleague en route in Prague, Eva Erbanova.  Eva, now 72, was a child in Terezin, transported to Auchwitz and miraculously survived the death march from Auchwitz at the end of the war.  We fell in love with Eva the moment she stepped onto the bus.  Cheerful, intelligent, humorous and beautiful. And so generous in talking about her past.  We asked how she survived and she told us this story:

Eva was twelve years old, on this death march from Auchwitz.  At night, they stopped along the road to sleep.  One night it was cold, very cold. Somehow she made her way into a barn and slept beneath a cow, huddled there for warmth.  When she woke up, everyone was gone.  The dogs that had rounded up the prisoners had not detected her because her scent was that of the cow.  With rags on her feet she walked for days. Eventually, she made her way to a farmhouse, knocked on the door and saw Nazi boots when it opened.  She ran until she collapsed in a field.  A farmer found her, brought her to his home and nursed her back to life over several months.      None of her family survived except for a non-Jewish aunt, with whom she stayed for a time.  She tried to tell the stories of what happened to her in Terezin and Auchwitz, but found that no one believed her.  So she, as with many survivors, stopped talking about that part of her life, until recent years, now feeling the urgent need to inform new generations.

We arrive in Klatovy – it has been a three hour ride instead of two,-- so once again we are pressed for time to be ready for a 10 a.m. performance.  We are met at the school by George, the English teacher, and six strapping students to help us load-in.  We are grateful.  We have also met Ivona Synakova, our contact person, also involved in Holocaust education projects.  She initiated a study entitled “Neighbors Who Disappeared,” interviewing people in the community who remember Jewish families who were rounded up and sent away during the war.

Somehow, we are set up and sound checked in 45 minutes, the students are filing in and we introduce the program, on time, at 10 a.m.  Again, it is a moving and well-received performance.  The students are shy but ask good questions.  It is astonishing but clear they have little knowledge of this event that took place in their part of the world in the lifetime of their grandparents.

It is wonderful having Eva with us.  She relates to the students with ease and provides authentic information with charm and humor.  One student asked, “What did you get to eat in Terezin?” Eva told him about having to work in the fields, which produced food for the Nazi workers at the camp.  Though she was only 10 years old, she and her friends would wear brassieres under their clothing.  While working, they would pick potatoes and other edibles, stuff them in their undergarments, and return to their barracks very “well endowed” for pre-adolescents.

It is almost noon and we must move on to set up in another school for the afternoon performance.  When we arrive, we see a memorial plaque with a Star of David at the gym entrance.  We ask Ivona what it signifies.  She tells us that this was the location, this gym, where Jews of the area were rounded up and held until being transported to Terezin from 1942 to the end of the war. -- We set up in silence. The students arrive, eager, respectful and attentive. Again, it is special having Eva with us to field questions in the Czech language and to answer them with first hand knowledge.

Again, it is time to move on. We are sad to have to say our good byes to Eva, who is returning by bus to Prague.  She is complimentary in her assessment of the presentation.  This means a lot to us. We promise to stay in touch.

We head for Susice, the location of our performance tomorrow.  Ivona has made hotel arrangements in response to our email correspondence requesting a “Best Western” type accommodation (based on the fact that Best Western has a presence in the Czech Republic).  She directs us to the “hotel” and we are taken aback by what we see.  Ivona has indeed found us the best western hotel in the area.  An inn called the Country Saloon. There are roosters in the yard and we expect to see a shed with a crescent moon carved in the door.  To our amazement the inn is filled with authentic and charming decor beyond anything we might have found in the heart of Texas or Wyoming.  We have a great barbeque dinner, a fine night’s sleep and wonderful breakfast.  Bed and breakfast comes to less than $15 per person!

Thursday, June 13 – A beautiful new day in the Republic of Czech.  Our performance is not until 1 p.m. at yet another school arranged by Ivona.  So, we have a little time to visit Velhartice, a medieval castle at which Ivona is a tour guide.  She gives us a private tour.  It had been neglected and run down during the communist era as was true of so much of Czechoslovakia, but now is being restored. The artistry of the exhibits is impressive, the history colorful and the setting splendid – truly breath taking.

We see school groups coming to see the castle, and realize children are the same the world over – energetic, enthusiastic, curious, friendly and even carry backpacks with Little Mermaid and Pokeman images.  But we can’t linger because, again, we are pressed for time to get to the school and set up for the 1 p.m. presentation.

Two flights of stairs to the auditorium!  But, it is a technical dream.  A real theatre space with blackout shades on the windows so our slides will be clear for the first time on this tour. The students are mature and the presentation is at its best.  We field questions and provide responses, knowing, once again, there are no easy answers, sometimes no answers, just questions.  But, how good it is that the questions are being asked.

Our load out this time involves a total breakdown, for airline packing.  Everyone participates. Ten people with different agendas have become a single unit working toward the same objective.

We move on to spend a few days as tourists in Ceske Krumlov, a medieval  town in the south of the Czech Rebublic, then to Karlovy Vary in the north while some head back to Prague, some to Berlin and Paris.

All of us will sort out and ponder the profound events of this week. We have visited the ghosts of the children whose world we inhabit each time we perform “The Last . . . Butterfly.”  We have seen their beautiful countryside. We have a new understanding of their words and drawings.  We are filled with new insights and knowledge of a time and a place in history.  We have mourned the past– and now, encouraged by the fact that children here and in other parts of the world are learning the truth about the past, we feel a sense of hope for the future.  We return to the United States, knowing that despite the challenges of September 11, it is a beacon of light, a symbol of freedom, opportunity, hopes and dreams.  Our hearts are full.