The Butterfly Project
The Butterfly Project1 is a call to action through the arts, using the lessons of the Holocaust to educate about the dangers of hatred and bigotry through the painting of ceramic butterflies, permanently displayed around the world to memorialize each of the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust.
Paired with a meaningful lesson in history, handmade ceramic butterflies are counted collectively to reach our goal of 1.5 million butterflies displayed around the world, a global memorial symbolizing renewed life.
At the core of The Butterfly Project lies education and awareness.
The EVJCC will be hosting several Butterfly Project Events throughout the year and we invite you to participate with us.
Visit Our J’s Calendar of Events
The Vision2
Transform resistance through art and education, and empower people to take actions against injustice.
Partner with everyone that currently has or wants to build a connection to history and honoring those who died in the Holocaust.
The Butterfly Project (Zikaron V’Tikvah ~ Hebrew for Remembrance and Hope) was co-founded in 2006 by educator Jan Landau and artist Cheryl Rattner Price. Jan and Cheryl started this as an initiative at San Diego Jewish Academy to take Holocaust education out of the textbook and bring it to life in a way that inspires students to make the world a better place.
The project draws on inspiration from The Diary of Anne Frank, the poem The Butterfly written during the Holocaust, and the documentary film Paper Clips.
At this time, The Butterfly Project is now a global memorial with over 200 communities counting together, including Canada, Mexico, Israel, Australia, France, Tanzania, Cuba, Morocco and Poland.
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 goodbye.
For seven weeks I’ve live in here,
Penned up inside this ghetto
But I have found my people here.
The dandelions call to me
And the white chestnut candies in the court.
Only I never saw another butterfly.
The butterfly was the last one.
Butterflies don’t live in here,
In the ghetto.
By Pavel Friedmann 4.6 1942