1. RESISTANCE during the Holocaust

4. These artists also stole materials so that the children could surreptitiously create their works of art. Six thousand drawings were hidden and later successfully retrieved to be displayed telling their poignant stories to thousands of viewers in Prague, Israel, and Washington, D.C. This considerable volume of artwork and poetry produced by the children was inspired by the large number of adult artists and intellectuals who stayed at Theresienstadt. The adults held classes and tried to give some sense of normalcy to the lives of the children.

7. The children of Theresienstadt Fifteen thousand children under the age of fifteen passed through the Theresienstadt; fewer than one hundred survived. Resistance in this camp can be seen through the words and pictures written and drawn by the young inmates of Theresienstadt. The daily misery of these uprooted children, as well as their hopes, fears, courage, and optimism, is recorded in over 4000 drawings. Of the 15,000 children who passed through between 1941 and 1945 only 132 survived.

9. Like many other young children, 12-year-old Helga Weissova drew pictures of what she saw in Theresienstadt. Growing up in Theresienstadt, she witnessed the Holocaust through a child's clear eyes as it consumed her world. With crayons and paintbrushes, she recorded institutionalized barbarities and everyday decencies in images that still sear the soul. Helga was one of just a few who survived to become a living witness to the horrors of life inside Theresienstadt. Helga Weissova Arrival at Theresienstadt

10. RESISTANCE THROUGH ART AND POETRY “ In most cases, little is known about the children of Terezin. Camp records generally provided only dates of birth; arrival at Terezin; and departure, destination, and fate. Through their artistic expressions, the voices of these children, each one unique and individual, reach us across the abyss of the greatest crime in human history, allow us to touch them, and restore our own humanity in doing so.” ( I Never Saw Another Butterfly )

12. AT TEREZIN When a new child comes Everything seems strange to him. What, on the ground I have to lie? Eat black potatoes? No! Not I! I've got to stay? It's dirty here! The floor- why, look, it's dirt, I fear! And I'm supposed to sleep on it? I'll get all dirty! Here the sound of shouting, cries, And oh, so many flies. Everyone knows flies carry disease. Oooh, something bit me! Wasn't that a bedbug? Here in Terezin, life is hell and when I'll go home again, I can't yet tell. --"Teddy" 1943

14. Artist is unknown.

17. THE MUSIC OF TERRAZIN

18. The question why the Nazis used orchestras in concentration and extermination camps, and why the life of some musicians was spared and others not is difficult to answer. Some Nazis realized the advantage of having music dupe the unsuspecting and weary prisoners on arrival or when sending them on their way to the gas chambers. Then there were those in the Nazi hierarchy who believed that music would enhance their own entertainment. Against this background, emerged one of the most outstanding examples of resistance. Rafael Schachter devoted his time to making music under the most horrible of circumstances. Song of Defiance They confronted the Nazis with the only weapon they had: their voices

19. The Jewish prisoners subjected to this inhuman regimen included distinguished scholars and scientists in all fields, painters, sculptors, composers, instrumentalists, operatic divas, and other musicians. They were determined to maintain their spirits in the face of their conditions by continuing their intellectual and artistic endeavors for the benefit of fellow prisoners after their long workdays on meager rations. One musician, Rafael Schächter , devoted himself to making music in Teresin. In addition to such musical endeavors as staging operas, Schächter directed a chorus of 150 in performing Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem . Schächter had a single copy of the Verdi score and his chorus learned the work by rote (today’s piano-reduction choral score runs to 140 pages). In 1943 and 1944, they performed the Requiem sixteen times accompanied only on a legless piano propped up on boxes. "He was a hero because he shared his love He shared his love for music with people who needed it at a time when they needed it very badly. The camps were places that treated people in the worst possible way that mankind can invent. Yet his response to that was not to go down to their level but to rise above and show the best of mankind, to respond to the worst of mankind with the best of mankind. So he took great music, great art, and he tried to inspire all of his people to choose life and to be determined. He himself was a victim, and yet he led others to the highest heights. Rafael Schachter Rafael Schachter

20. “ We need King Matt now, in our world more than ever.” Maurice Sendak Janusz Korczak ( educator and physician) Janusz Korczak was Poland’s most famous children’s advocate. He was a Jewish physician who ran an orphanage which he directed. In addition to his orphanage, he produced a well respected children’s newspaper and a weekly radio program in Poland. In 1940 his orphanage was relocated to the Warsaw Ghetto. For the next two years, Janusz Korczak used all of his connections to help the orphans survive with dignity. In the summer of 1942, he resisted help from friends in escaping preferring instead to go with his children to Treblinka where they all eventually perished. Janusz Korczak with some of his orphan children. King Matt the First – Janusz Korczak

22. The true victory of the human spirit shines through in all of these examples of resistance. One not only glimpses the warmth and compassion for the human condition by all of these heroic individuals, but one also sees the human spirit rising above the evils of the perpetrators during one of man’s darkest periods in human history.