Merry's Musings

What was I thinking... 

what could be easier than making a butterfly?

I was immediately drawn to "the Butterfly Project" for so many reasons, the first being the mention of losing a million and a half kids... to what (?!) my mind flew... and as I clicked further and further into the subject, the deeper and deeper I was drawn.

What should have been a brief arts and crafts project done in justified haste to show my support for a worthy cause, has turned into hours spent on survivor websites, history websites, newspapers surrounded by death, horror, and shock.

I too am captured just as the Jews, caught in the horror. There are thousands of websites now that have tons of information, stories and poems written by those who died, and by survivors. It is heart wrenching to read especially from the children.

I probably could spend an enormous amount of time pursuing this but as I got into the stories, I found I was feeling very very sad  for this event that happened so long ago, and had it on my mind a lot.

So I am calling an end to my project with my 4 butterfly boys. I am not happy with the way they turned out. I am not happy with the holocaust, and I think it shows in the work. It's impossible to try to bring any happiness to this subject, and if I had the resources and the time I would probably depict on a huge canvas a million and a half children with angelic wings glowing in their freedom in the afterlife soaring heavenward.

I chose children who were liberated by the allies caught in the happy moment of being set free to be the center of the collage, hoping to focus on some good, but honestly there was no good to be had even for most of these children. They were orphaned one and all as their parents and weaker brothers and sisters were starved, gassed en mass, mutilated and tortured. The only reason the children were allowed to live was because they were strong enough to be used as manual labor the bury the bodies.

Those who were liberated oftentimes met untimely deaths or became beggars or met some other unhappy fate, and those with seemingly happy endings were haunted their whole lives..."I feel a tremendous guilt … why did I survive?"

We're so lucky, my generation, the baby boomers and younger in this country. And the butterfly project really drives it home. By an accident of birth, through nothing they did, those people were robbed stripped tortured annihilated, and we have drive thrus.

It is a project for the strong of heart, but what an impact it will make at it's completion. Cruise on over, check it out and make a butterfly because no matter who you are, in what ever circumstance you are in you are so fortunate so lucky to not have been there.