Going through the old books of a departed relative, I found this heartbreaking edition: a collection of children‘s drawings and poems from the Theresienstadt Ghetto, drawn and written 1942-44. All of these children were later murdered in Auschwitz. #NeverForget @AuschwitzMuseum 1

"Man with a newspaper“ (the Theresienstadt Tagesbefehl), drawn by Susanna Winterová, born 1933 in Brno, murdered in Auschwitz on 4 October 1944. 2/

"Barred Window“ by Erika Taussigová, born 1934 in Prague, deported on 17 December 1941, murdered in Auschwitz on 16 October 1944. 3/

"Queuing for food“ by Liana Franklová, *1931 in Brno, murdered in Auschwitz 19 Oct 1944.
Text describing daily life in Theresienstadt by 15-year-old Peter Fischl (*1929), murdered 1944. 4/

"SS Man“ by Jiri Beutler, *1932 in Frydlant nad Ostravicí. Murdered in Auschwitz on 18 Mai 1944. 5/

"View of Theresienstadt“ by Hanuš Weinberg, born 1931 in Ústí nad Orlicí. Murdered in Auschwitz on 15 December 1943. 6/

"Little Girl with Transport Luggage“ by Ruth Heinová, born 1934 in Prag, deported in 1942, murdered in Auschwitz on 23 October 1944. 7/

Poem "The Butterfly“ by Pavel Friedmann, *1921, murdered on 19 September 1944 in Auschwitz. The poem remembers a yellow butterfly he had seen (before deportation), closing with the assumption that this was "the last one“ because "butterflies don‘t live in the Ghetto“. 8/

"On a sunny evening“.
The author is unknown, assumed to be a child aged 10-16.
Last verse (forgive my clumsy translation):
"Everything blooms and smiles
I want to fly as well, but don‘t know how
That is why I want to live on
And laugh just like them.“ 9/

This collection was edited by the Státní Zidovské Museum in Prague in 1959. Only 7000 copies (in 4 different languages) were printed. 10/

The drawings were collected by the museum after the war as part of the "documents of persecution“. The drawings were found in envelopes marked with the numbers of the children‘s "homes“, where the children had received art lessons in secret. 11/

The poems were found in the archives of the Jewish Museum in Prague. One of the teachers in Theresienstadt had collected them. His wife brought them to the archives in 1952. Peter Fischl‘s prose "Pavel Bondy’s Diary“ was brought into the archive in 1945. 12/ ends