Holocaust play ‘I Never Saw Another Butterfly' offers vision of hope in Burlington
BURLINGTON, N.C. (WGHP) — Great literature and art can move us in an inexplicable way.
Gracie Cohen learned that six years ago as a 12-year-old when she played the role of Raja in the play 'I Never Saw Another Butterfly.'
The play tells the story of the Terezin camp outside Prague in the Czech Republic where the Nazi regime took many art-oriented Jews who had to find a way to survive the years of deprivation and mass murder.
Cohen did the show at Temple Emmanuel in Greensboro and vowed to do the show again. So for the last six years, she worked to raise money to secure the rights to the script and wrote proposals for the Studio 1 theater in Burlington. This year, it's on their calendar. For Cohen, it's been a work of passion.
'I felt that the show and this character was going to stick with me a long time. I didn't know I was going to have another opportunity to do it,' Cohen said.
Tim Brown is directing the show.
'I was a little overwhelmed not knowing a lot about Jewish heritage,' Brown said. 'Since Gracie came to me to talk about this project, it has become very life-consuming.'
He had to learn that Jewish heritage to give the subjects of the play the treatment he felt they deserved. One thing he wanted to make sure he did was not make the characters look like victims.
'The message of hope and transformation even in a time of darkness if we look at what hope is and let that light come forth. I think that's a message for everybody: … Ff we can hold on to that hope, we just might have a fighting chance to survive,' Brown said.
That's the message Cohen was hoping to send.
'The overwhelming message of this is … hope … no matter what is going on and no matter what is happening politically or the climate of today. The community is what's holding it together,' Cohen said.
'These are my two aunts. My grandmother's two sisters,' said Courtney Doi as she showed pictures of them: Etta, who survived her time in Terezin, and Ruth who didn't.
'Ruth was an artist, and this is a book she illustrated,' Doi said while displaying a book published in 1936 before Ruth and Etta were taken to Terezin.
Doi is a member of the North Carolina Council on the Holocaust and often speaks to groups about it even though she wasn't raised Jewish herself. Her maternal grandmother was a force in her life.
'She was kind of my person growing up,' Doi said. 'I spent every summer with her from the time I was 7 until the time I was 15.'
She even traveled to Terezin with her, which was a truly moving experience.
'When you walk in … you can't believe that these horrible things happened there,' Doi said. 'It looks like a town. It's famous because of the Red Cross footage where Hitler brought people in and said, 'Hey, I'm not doing anything bad to the Jews. This is just a resettlement community.''
You can see the play at the Studio 1 Theater in the Holly Hill Mall in Burlington from Jan. 16 to Jan. 19.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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