This week, we have had something really cool going on at the middle school that I would like to share. Our amazing 7th-grade History team is participating in something called the Butterfly project.
The Butterfly Project shares personal stories from Holocaust Survivors and families, painting ceramic butterflies to honor the 1.5 million children killed in the Holocaust, and creating art installations as reminders for courage, justice, remembrance, and hope. Why the butterfly? The Butterfly Project pays tribute to the poem, “The Butterfly,” written by a young prisoner at the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Butterflies are beautiful, fragile and resilient and represent transformation and freedom.
Each student has the chance to make a personal connection to the child on their biography card as they paint their own personal butterfly in memory of that child. One student painted a picture on her butterfly that is a replica of a picture the child in her biography drew that is currently on display at the Holocaust Museum. Another student painted his butterfly wings with 3 pink parts and one blue part. When I asked him why, he said because the child in his biography had 4 siblings, 3 sisters and 1 brother.
Students get to keep the biographies, but their butterflies are being sent back, fired in a kiln, and used as part of a memorial display at the Virginia Holocaust Museum (VHM) in Richmond, Virginia.
This began their Unit on World War II, and you can imagine how impactful The Butterfly Project has been!
