Bartram High students connect to "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" performance

The words came from the poems and stories in the book and play I Never Saw Another Butterfly, based on the experiences of the children who wrote poems and made artworks to pass the time in the camp. The title comes from a poem, "The Butterfly," written by one of the children.

The actors recently performed the story at the Wilma Theater for students from Bartram High School, many of whom know all too well feelings of loss.

The students, who were all learning English, came from a variety of countries, from Pakistan to the Dominican Republic and nations in West Africa. As they watched, many displayed their emotional connection to the play's feelings of fear and hope.

Student Mama T. Bah from Sierra Leone said it was easy for him to relate to Raja, the main character.

"I used to have seven brothers," he said. "I was the only one who came out. I am happy here, but I am proud of where I came from."

After the performance, the actors stood in a circle with the students to rehearse the poem "I Am a Jew, and Will Be a Jew Forever."

The Bartram students will perform that poem with the cast at the end of the show's run on April 9. (The last two shows are on April 8 and 9, at 7:30 p.m., at the Kimmel Center as part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts.)

About 15,000 children went through Terezin between 1941 and 1945, and the book is a collection of their poetry and drawings.

The play, by Celeste Raspanti, focuses on Raja, one of 100 children who survived Terezin. Raja is often hopeless, but eventually leaves the camp no longer afraid of the future.

In the play, two actors play Raja, one the frightened young girl, the other an older Raja who speaks to the audience.

Young Raja shows fear when friends and family members are called to go to Auschwitz because "if you go to Auschwitz, you die."

Raja lived, and returned to Prague after the camp's liberation. She grew up to be a pediatric immunologist, married with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

During a recent Skype meeting with the cast, Raja Englanderova-Zadnikova, now 83, reminded the actors that they will be the last generation to know Holocaust survivors. She thanked them for reminding audiences "to never forget."

While in the camp, the children of Terezin grew up together, their artwork and poems their "invisible line of communication."

Raja and a friend, Hanza, would write poems and leave them hidden while they worked and were apart. Much of their time in the camp was waiting: waiting to be sent to another camp and death, or waiting hopefully for those who were sent away to return.

Raja's teacher, Irena, tells her to keep strong in the face of fear: "Stop thinking about tomorrow and keep alive today."

Irena tells the children to think about the fields, flowers, and butterflies that await them outside the camp, and see them as symbols of hope and freedom.

"Butterflies don't live in here, in the ghetto," according to "The Butterfly," written by Pavel Friedmann, who died in Auschwitz on Sept. 29, 1944.

Although Irena dies, along with Raja's family and friends, Raja does not leave the camp feeling alone.

Dana Handleman, who played the older Raja, explained to the Bartram students how the show can connect with anyone regardless of religious or ethnic background: "Everyone comes from something they can be proud of, something that's been discriminated."

The play was directed by Bobbi Wolf, founder of Wolf PAC, a nonprofit theater group that produces family-oriented shows.

She said the cast of nine actors, ages 11 to 23, "have grown as a group and as individuals." The show has four casts for a total of 38 students and two adults.

Codirector Tim Popp said that the cast came to understand the feelings of the children in the concentration camps.

"There is nothing more impressive," he said, "than seeing them stand up and say they now see the world differently."

Contact Hillary Siegel at 215-854-2771 or hsiegel@phillynews.com.