About the Registration

Between 1995 and 2015, Holocaust Museum Houston collected more than 1.5 million handmade butterflies to commemorate the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust. The project was imagined and based on an inspiring poem written by Pavel Friedman in 1942, when he was a prisoner in the Terezin Concentration Camp in former Czechoslovakia. Friedman’s poem, “The Butterfly,” appears in the book edited by Hana Volavkova, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp 1942–1944.”

These stunning, handmade butterflies were created by children from around the world using an incredible array of materials, colors and beauty. It is time for these butterflies to share their beauty in the form of exhibitions, serving as a credit to the people who created the butterflies and as a commemoration of the children who perished – often without having a grave or headstone. The memory of these children and the loss of their talents and possibilities is felt in the grace and beauty seen in each of the more than 1.5 million handmade butterflies that now rest in Houston.

With the assistance of HAA, Holocaust Museum Houston will select one or more artists to develop installations and presentations with a portion of the 1.5 million handmade butterflies. The artist(s) will select butterflies to create storefront displays at Neiman Marcus Houston-Galleria and in curated museum cases to tour area libraries, office buildings and other public facilities.

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