Img. ID: 397976
*Memorials | Memorial to the Holocaust (Shoah) victims | Memorial to children
*Memorials | Holocaust-related memorial | Gratitude Memorial | Memorial to rescuers | Memorial to “Righteous Among the Nations”
*Memorials | Memorial to the Holocaust (Shoah) victims | Memorial to survivors
*Memorials | Holocaust-related memorial | Gratitude Memorial | Memorial to liberators
The Holocaust Butterfly Memorial Monument honors the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust. The project began in 1998 when local Chabad Jewish Academy Social Studies teacher Ellie Schiller developed a project with her students to honor the child victims of the Holocaust inspired by the poem “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” written by Pavel Friedmann, a young man deported to Terezin in 1942 and killed at Auschwitz in 1944. The goal was to collect 1.5 million paper butterflies in memory of each child. Hugo Schiller, Elie’s husband Hugo, himself a Holocaust survivor, encouraged the project.
Publicity about the project spread Though Schiller and her students began by receiving only a few butterflies a week from across the country, the numbers grew dramatically and in time, more than 1.5 million butterflies were collected from around the world. In 2014, a foundation was founded to honor the project with the primary purpose to create a permanent memorial to child victims. $32,000 was raised and the City of Myrtle Beach contributed the location and extra funding. The Butterfly Memorial Monument was created in a public park, next to the children's playground, and dedicated in 2016 and The City of Myrtle Beach accepted ownership of the monument.