From 1942 to 1945 over 15,000 Jewish children passed through Terezin, a former military garrison set up as a ghetto. It soon became a station, a stopping off place, for thousands on their way to the gas chambers of Auschwitz. When Terezin was liberated in May 1945, only about one hundred children were alive to return to what was left of their lives, their homes and families. The story of those years at Terezin remains in drawings and poems collected and published in the book, I Never Saw Another Butterfly.

The appendix to I Never Saw Another Butterfly, briefly notes the names of the children, the dates of their birth and transportation to Terezin. For most of the children whose work appears in the book, the brief biography ends, "perished at Auschwitz...". But one child, Raja Englanderova, "after the liberation, returned to Prague." This play is an imaginative creation of her story from documentation materials: poems, diaries, letters, journals, drawings and pictures.

Treaty Six Acknowledgment

We acknowledge that this project was created, filmed and produced on Treaty 6 territory, a traditional meeting grounds, gathering place, and travelling route to the Cree, Saulteaux, Blackfoot, Métis, Dene and Nakota Sioux. We acknowledge all the many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit whose footsteps have marked these lands for centuries.