Why+are+children’s+artwork+and+poetry+important+to+the+Holocaust?

Art Reveals Crucial Secrets of History
Elle Hayes

“With its [Terezin Concentration Camp] high proportions of artists and intellectuals, culture flourished in the ghetto—alongside starvation, disease, and constant dread of the continuous transports to the death camps of the East…” (Volavkova)

Between 1942 and 1944, 15,000 children (under fifteen) came through the Terezin Concentration Camp, but less than 100 got out of its walls alive. (Volavkova) How then is there so much proof of their presence in the Holocaust, as any Jew was simply sentenced to death? It is simple, really. Children, then and now, need a creative outlet. It is like food and water to them. Their ability to create art (and poetry) under even the worst conditions has allowed us to get a greater understanding of what the concentration camps were like.

“In these poems and pictures created by the young inmates of Terezin, we see the daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their courage and optimism, their hopes and fears.” (Volavkova)

The artwork and poetry written by children throughout the Holocaust are crucial artifacts of proof that it did exist. It also shows how the Jews, Gypsies and minorities were treated in the Terezin camp. These pictures and poems can basically tell us, without the censor that adults generally have, what happened in Terezin and other camps. Although the saying “children should be seen and no heard” used to be a popular phrase among adults, researchers now are trying desperately to look at what they had to say through their art. A piece of artwork or poetry can give one a wealth of information on events and life during the Holocaust, even after its creator is long gone.

//I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944// is a collection of poems and pieces of art made by children of the Holocaust. In it, many horrors are revealed; different works depict different emotions, but the underlying theme of every work is the same. This poem really shows what Terezin is like through a child's eyes: