A VIEWER'S GUIDE by Steven M. Brown Steven M Brown, Ed. D. served as Headmaster of the Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Philadelphia and now is Director of the Melton Research Center and Assistant Dean of the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. The Film The Journey of Butterfly is a film which humanizes and personalizes history. Executive Producer/ Director Robert E. Frye has written: "The creative mind provides our world with a rich legacy of sights and sounds. Over the course of human history individuals have created art, music, and writings under the most adverse of circumstances. One of the most moving examples of this occurred fifty years ago in Terezin, Czechoslovakia, a small walled fortress where Nazi forces established a 'model' Jewish ghetto. "In October 1991, during the weeks commemorating the fiftieth year of Terezin establishment as a ghetto by the Nazis, the producers, with the members of the American Boychoir, from Princeton, New Jersey supported by a production film team from Czechoslovakia traveled to Terezin to film. We filmed over twenty hours of footage, including performances of pieces unique to Terezin artists, who were prisoners in Terezin, such as Czech opera star Karel Berman and concert pianist Edith Kraus. Each memory, every feeling, as expressed by survivors, bridges the distance of five decades. History comes alive through their testimony. "Of the 15,000 children who were held prisoner in Terezin, only a handful survived. The Journey of Butterfly weaves the story into a rich tapestry through the performance of "I Never Saw Another Butterfly," a concert composed by Charles Davidson, with words written by the children held prisoner in Terezin fifty years ago, and sung by the American Boychoir combined with paintings and drawings created by adults and children imprisoned in Terezin, overlaid with musical performances, and interviews with those who survived Terezin. "On their journey the members of the American Boychoir hear through the witness of survivors the dramatic stories and powerful motivations behind the creative, often secret life inside the ghetto, the uncanny optimism and will to survive, the excruciating reality, and underlying sense of hope. This film explores the past while speaking of our future. The Journey of Butterfly speaks to everyone of the human spirit and the hope to survive the adversity which life can present, and the need for tolerance towards all humankind " General Overview and History Terezin is a microcosm of the most powerful evil committed by human kind and the miraculous ability of the human spirit to overcome even the most devastating aspects of the universe. As told in the film, "This is the story of a legacy left by a group of children. They told of life through their creativity, their writing and art. Terezin is a small walled fortress town in the now Czech Republic north of the capital city of Prague. Two hundred years ago Terezin was built to house units of the Austro-Hungarian army. In March of 1939 Czechoslovakia fell under the domination of Nazi Germany. By the fall of 1941 Terezin, or Theresienstadt as it was called, had been earmarked for a new role. Within its walls barrack blocks were to imprison many thousands of Jewish citizens, adults and children taken from their homes and livelihoods not only from Czechoslovakia, but eventually from all over Nazi occupied Europe. "Terezin was a ghetto, a concentration camp for those who survived, and a transit camp, a stop on the way east, to the gas chambers in other concentration camps. Between November 1941 and May 1945 140,000 adults and children were imprisoned in Terezin (ghetto Theresienstadt) by the Nazis. Nearly 34,000 died there. 88,000 people were transported to the east, of which 15,000 were children. Most were killed in the Nazi concentration camps. 17,000 adults and children were liberated from Terezin in May 1945." The Music The song cycle "I Never I Saw Another Butterfly" was composed by Charles Davidson in 1968 and first performed by the Columbus Boychoir, the precursor of the American Boychoir of Princeton, New Jersey. Composer Davidson desired to "establish a living memorial for the young poets and the millions they represent." The music and poems have been performed by hundreds of choirs in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel in thousands of performances. Reflecting on the music's first performance in Prague and then in Terezin, Davidson comments: "I had lived with the music and the poetry for many years and have always believed that it expresses my deepest feelings of sorrow at the destruction wrought upon Jewish people and other peoples by the inhumanity of the Nazis and abetted by the apparent disinterest of the world." Davidson's eloquent and simple music makes use of clear and pure melodies, boy soprano and alto voices angelic in their quality, contrasted at times with dissonant, harsh harmony. There is constant movement in the accompaniment and vocal lines towards an end which is never quite reached, though perhaps subconsciously understood. Childlike Iyricism is juxta posed musically to the underlying disharmony of ugliness and death surrounding life in the ghetto. A disruptive irregularity in changes of rhythm as in "Man Proposes God Disposes" reflects the tenuousness and fragility of all situations in Terezin and the impermanence of life. Rhythmic martial sounds of tramping soldiers'feet as interpreted by the Boychoir are a terror of tone painting The strong use of strings as basic orchestration are appropriate to the themes longing, sadness, tenuousness, and sustained torment. Unexpected harmonies in "when the blossom comes to bloom the little boy will be no more," reflect the hesitant tension between growth and death, hope and despair. Perhaps most dramatically, the soaring tones of "Butterfly" and "On A Sunny Evening" lift us to a transcendent realm, beyond time and space signifying eternity, hope, beauty, and renewal. "Birdsong," reprising many of the musical elements in the song cycle, concludes the piece in the unrestrained joy of a child's indomitable hope for a better future. The Art The incredible artistic productivity of the transient prisoners of Terezin is a spiritual miracle which has impelled those who have labored to set The Journey of Butterfly to music and bring it to the screen. This is a story about how art can transform - about the power of art to give meaning to life, to reshape the ugliness of reality, and find some beauty or purpose lending human beings a sense of control over otherwise chaotic circumstances. If art is the product of the desire of human beings to represent their most profound moralities and concepts of beauty in a form which is both tangible and eternal, the artistic products and spirit of Terezin represent the ultimate power of art to transform and turn evil against itself. In the surviving artistic artifacts of Terezin combined with the hauntingly reflective music of the composer, we see how art can unite human beings in love and give them the sense of empowerment and control. Why is it that people need to leave an artistic legacy? Why did the oppressed inhabitants of Terezin need to document their horrible truth in poetry and art? Is it the result of our inherent desire for immortality? Anyone who publishes a book or a song, or exhibits a work of art for others to admire, knows the feeling of expanded self and implied immortality the artifacts of our thought and creativity reflect. Art itself can be a force for moral good. The need of the citizens of Terezin to be so productive was generated by the fact that some knew their lives would be unnaturally shortened, and others, perhaps unconsciously, desperately wanted to reassert a moral order in the universe. Art was a vehicle for the expression of ideals, values, emotions, as well as a means of escape, helping to transport the human soul or spirit from the here and now to a valued other place of peace and tranquility. Frederick Terna, a survivor imprisoned in 1943-44 and now an artist living in the United States, mentions that the camp years for him were as a "bass [line] played by a crazy bassoonist, and I've learned to play the fiddle above it so that it makes for some harmony." Art can free the enslaved of body and spirit. The concerts, cabarets, children's opera that were staged despite the overwhelming despair, point to the best in the human spirit. Problematic, of course, is the consideration that the Nazis loved art as well. Music, literature, architecture were all at their most revered during the height of the Nazi regime. Art in itself is not necessarily ethical. Art in itself does not necessarily promote the supreme value of human life and can be manipulated for evil purposes. The very fact that the Nazis used Terezin as a propaganda mechanism to show the Red Cross, and ultimately the world, the supposed benign nature of Nazi rule is a powerful symbol of how art can be turned into a tool of evil. Contrasts The legacy of Terezin--its history, poetry, art, and music is a study in the struggle for life and the contrasts that struggle poses: good-evil; light-dark; art- degradation; poetry--dehumanization; spirituality--decadence; hope-despair; freedom-imprisonment; life-death. Yet among stark contrasts are the shades of gray which colored the prisoners' existence. In the ambiguity of poetry and prose they searched for balance and wholeness: "The whole wide world is ruled with a certain justice, so that helps perhaps to sweeten the poor man's pain and woe"; "...that sweet darkness that falls upon the soul and heals those wounds illumined by the day..."; "For seven weeks I've lived in here, penned up inside this ghetto, but I have found my people here"; and "But anyway, I still believe I only sleep today, that I'll wake up a child again and start to laugh and play." Each of these writers seeks to find a living and self sustaining bridge between the extreme contrasts generated by life in Terezin.