The Charlotte Jewish News - December 2014 - Page 12
The Butterflies That Flew to Poland
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Two summers ago, Wilma
Asrael, one of the originators of
the Levine JCC’s Butterfly
Projeet, hurriedly organized a
speeial butterfly painting ses
sion that was attended by Holo-
eaust survivors, liberators, and
family members.
Cheryl Priee, the founder of
the Butterfly Projeet in San
Diego, was returning to
Krakow, where she had started
a Butterfly Projeet. She was
willing to take our butterflies
with her provided she eould get
them before her imminent de
parture.
Rushing against time, the
butterflies were glazed and
fired, then earefully and lov
ingly paeked and shipped off to
San Diego. Within days the 23
Charlottean butterflies, all
signed on the baek by those
who painted them, were flying
over the oeean on their way to
Poland.
Krakow’s Jewish History
Krakow is the seeond largest
eity in Poland and Jewish pres-
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The butterfly display on the Krakow JCC.
enee there dates baek to the 15th
eentury and up to the time the
eommunity was systematieally
destroyed during World War II.
In Oetober of 1939, the Nazis
registered 88,482 Jews in Krakow,
a quarter of the eity’s population.
By 1940, approximately 52,000
were deported to hard labor
eamps in the East. The rest of the
Jewish population, about 16,000,
was foreibly resettled into what
would beeome known as the
“Krakow Ghetto.” Unbeknownst
to the ghetto inmates at the time,
the Plazlow Labor Camp was
under eonstruetion nearby, and
only some 40 miles away loomed
in waiting the Ausehwitz Death
Camp.
As in all the ghettos estab
lished by the Nazis, the Krakow
Ghetto was overerowded, there
was very little food, and no one
was safe from deportation. Over
the two years of its existenee,
several thousand inmates were ei
ther killed or died from hunger.
Then, in three waves spanning
from late Oetober 1942 to mid-
Mareh 1943, the ghetto was liqui
dated. The last wave of brutality
and death perpetrated on Mareh
13, 1943, is well deseribed and
painfully depleted in Thomas Ke-
neally’s renowned book and
Steven Spielberg’s famous film
“Sehindler’s List.” The eity of
Krakow, whieh had been a eul-
tural Jewish eenter for eenturies,
beeame, as intended by the Nazis,
“Juden Frei.”
Krakow Today
Fast forward seventy years later
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to the present. Very little has re
mained of the Krakow Ghetto,
only fragments of its walls. But
right aeross the river is Kaz-
imierz; the beautiful, pre-war,
hundreds-of-years-old Jewish dis-
triet is now a major tourist attrae-
tion for the numerous visitors to
the eity. It is there, on the site of a
garden, to the rear of the Temple
Synagogue that a reeently built
strueture, the Jewish Community
Centre of Krakow, proudly stands.
In 2002, the Prinee of Wales
visited Krakow and the distriet of
Kazimierz made a strong impres
sion on him. Fie met with repre
sentatives of the Jewish religious
eommunity and learned that that
the eommunity laeked a plaee
where its members eould meet
outside of the synagogue. The
Prinee promised to help and to
gether with World Jewish Relief
and the Ameriean Jewish Joint
Distribution, seeured funding for
this purpose. It took years and a
lot of effort, but on April 29, 2008,
the Prinee of Wales and the
Duehess of Cornwall eame to
Krakow to formally open its Jew
ish Community Centre.
Besides it being a plaee of eul-
tural events and a plaee where the
loeal Jewish eommunity meets, it
is also a plaee for tourists. The
Krakow JCC is listed in every
website that deals with travel to
Krakow and featured among
plaees of interest to visit in the
eity. The building eontains offiees,
eonferenee halls, and a restaurant.
It has also adopted, thanks to
Cheryl, an ongoing Butterfly
Workshop.
This is the plaee our travelling
butterflies now eall home. Our 23
butterflies have joined up with the
ones painted by the survivors of
Krakow and their families. To
gether, perehed on one of the outer
walls of the JCC that faees the
street, they serve as a memorial to
the 1.5 million ehildren who per
ished during the Floloeaust, many
of them murdered right aeross the
river, behind the broken pieees of
the ghetto walls. The wall of but
terflies also serves as a reminder
of the anthem of the Vilna Ghetto:
“The hour we have been yearn
ing for is near.
Our marehing steps will thun
der: We are here!”
That day has eome. Krakow is
no longer “Jew Free.” It is now
alive with Jews that are free. We
all are, and yes, we are here! ^
"He who does not know exile will
not understand how iuridiy it
coiors our sorrows, how it pours
the darkness of night and poison
into aii our thoughts ... Oniy he
who has iived in exiie knows what
iove of fatheriand is - patriotism
with aii its sweet terrors and its
nostaigic triais."
- Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Borne