In the Presence of Butterflies
The Story of the Original Butterfly Project
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"REMEMBER THE YELLOW-WINGED BUTTERFLY" Yellow brilliance with wings Against soft blue sky, So beautiful. The sun might have wept If it had tears. The last butterfly so lemony yellow Floated in a breeze That lifted it high And far away from here Far from this place that traps us. A million weeks we are here, it seems, ....In this sad ghetto. I do love the trees that whisper to me But the yellow-winged butterfly has flown free. Butterflies like fields, gardens, green forests And sweet meadows...never ghettos. If I were a yellow-winged butterfly, I would sail up high above this wall ...fly free from here And rescue every stolen child Before the train whistle screams again. A poem for Pavel Friedmann & Liane Krochmal, their families and all of the children who were murdered in the Holocaust. By Joy Summerlin-Glunt By Joy Summerlin-Glunt --born July, 1942
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About the Book
It was a day like none I had ever experienced... to be In The Presence of Butterflies like these very colorful and precious paper butterflies...a memorial for more than a million Jewish children who were murdered in the Holocaust. ------Joy Summerlin-Glunt IN THE PRESENCE OF BUTTERFLIES shares the story of The Original Butterfly Project, provides educators methods and practices on HOW TO TEACH ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST TO ANY AGE GROUP, and unveils THE BUTTERFLY PROJECT IV for THE PERMANENT BUTTERFLY MEMORIAL to be erected in Memory of all the Children and their Families who died in the Holocaust, and in Honor of all the Survivors, Rescuers, and Liberators. Once upon a time a teacher and her students decided to honor the memories of more than a million Jewish children who died in the Holocaust. They decided to make and decorate a paper butterfly in memory of each child. And then they did much more. Because the students were small in number, the teacher enlisted the help of the media to ask that everyone make a paper butterfly in memory of a child who had been killed in the Holocaust. People got involved around the world and soon the mailmen had delivered more than a million paper butterflies to the teacher and her students.
About the Author
I was a teacher/author teaching English and K-12 English as a Second Language when I discovered "THE BUTTERFLY PROJECT: REMEMBER THE CHILDREN." Immediately, I integrated this project into the curriculum of my students. Then I began writing, photographing, interviewing, and researching for this very special project my friend Eleanor Schiller, her husband Hugo Schiller, and a small Social Studies Class had begun. The writing, interviewing, and researching led to my writing I REMEMBER SINGING: A Boy Survives the Holocaust, a biography of Hugo Schiller, a Holocaust Survivor who was sent to the Concentration Camp de Gurs in Vichy France when he was seven years old. While Hugo was rescued, his parents and many relatives were sent to Auschwitz and killed. Today, I live, write and paint in a small cottage near the Atlantic Ocean, but I grew up on the edge of a green woods in North Carolina. In fourth grade--in a small country school called Rosewood--I wrote a short story about Holocaust children. In my story, some of the children survived. Imagine my surprise to meet brave child-hero Hugo Schiller who did survive the Holocaust. I was born the week Hugo Schiller arrived in Baltimore aboard the Portuguese Steamship Nyassa. He was 11 years old. Today, I write because I want to help make certain that our world becomes a more humane and peaceful place for our children, grandchildren, families and friends and to do that sometimes it becomes necessary to expose violence, hatred, bullying, intolerance, genocide, anti-Semitism...those elements that lead to holocausts. IN THE PRESENCE OF BUTTERFLIES documents the original butterfly projects, provides teachers and professors best Methods and Practices on HOW TO TEACH ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST TO ANY AGE GROUP, provides educators with excellent Reference Material, and unveils The Butterfly Project IV for The Permanent Butterfly Memorial Monument to be erected "In Memory of All The Children who Died in the Holocaust and their Families and in Honor of the Survivors, Rescuers, and Liberators."