‘Butterfly’: A Poignant, Uplifting Flight

“The Journey of Butterfly,” a poignant celebration of survival of the human spirit through creativity, is a rare family video.

This award-winning documentary, originally seen on public television, centers around a stunning concert performance of composer Charles Davidson’s “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” based on writings of children imprisoned in Nazi Germany’s “model” ghetto, Terezin, in then Czechoslovakia.

Sung with ethereal purity by the American Boychoir of Princeton, N.J., at the opening of the Jewish Museum in Terezin, the choral work is interwoven with photographs, artwork done by adult and child prisoners and first-hand accounts by surviving artists, singers and musicians.

Children are at the heart of this film, produced and directed by Robert E. Frye, and although the majority of those held at Terezin, a way station to the death camps, perished, there are no overt scenes of horror.

Indeed, those children of long ago, who wrote the words spoken and sung here, plainly knew of their futureless existence, but often expressed that knowledge through appreciation for the piercing beauty of a blue sky, of memories of home, of the sight of trees, birds or a single butterfly--even for the night that “heals those wounds illumined by day. . . .”

The uplifting film is crafted with notable integrity for ages 10 and up, and it is meant for children to watch and talk about with parents.

* “The Journey of Butterfly,” Bolthead Communications Group/THINK Media, 62 minutes, $19.95, plus $3.95 shipping and handling; viewer’s guide, $3. (800) 655-1998. Access the film’s home page at https://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/butterfly.