Recent workshops at the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum have a marked meaning for Klara Livshits, a native of Ukraine who moved to the United States in 2009. The ongoing summer event, “600 Butterflies: A Community Tribute to Holocaust Victims,” remembers children killed in the Holocaust.

“My husband was a Holocaust survivor,” said Livshits, 83.

Born in 1939, Livshits’ late husband Michael Livshits was forced into a Ukrainian ghetto at just 4 years old.  He passed away in 2020, but she recalls the fear and bravery in the stories he shared about his experience.

Today, Livshits is one of many participants at the museum’s workshop who’s ready to color and cut out a paper butterfly in memory of those who lost their lives in the Holocaust.

“We are committed to making 600 butterflies this summer,” said Helen Turner, the Museum’s director of education and interpretation. “I want you to decorate your butterfly with love, and then I want you to put your name on the back.”

Turner is a Holocaust historian who’s originally from southern England. Her family later moved to New York, where she pursued Holocaust studies and worked at the Holocaust Center in Nassau County. As part of her current role, she starts off each workshop by reading a poem by Pavel Friedmann titled “The Butterfly.”

Friedmann wrote the poem as a teenager during his time at a concentration camp in Prague. His writing describes a yellow butterfly that he saw before imprisonment. Friedmann was later murdered in Auschwitz, but his poem was rediscovered at the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia during World War II.

After Turner’s introduction, museum volunteers guide the rest of the workshop by helping participants and fielding any questions they might have.

“This event is starting to grow in popularity,” said Barbie Perlmutter of Creve Coeur, who belongs to Temple Emanuel.

Perlmutter, 68, became interested in volunteering at the museum when her son was part of the March of the Living in 1996—a yearly educational program that brings people from around the world to Poland to explore remnants of the Holocaust. She remembers attending classes with her son as part of March of the Living’s program, which were led by former museum director Rabbi Robert Sternberg. Now, she’s excited to help with this memorialization project and to see its influence on children and young adults.

“I think that kids can appreciate that there were children involved, and maybe relate to the fact that their life was a lot different,” she said.

Melissa Williams of St. Charles brought her four-year-old son Sawyer to a recent workshop to color a butterfly and learn about the past.

“I saw this event and thought this is something that when he’s older, he’ll know that he was a part of something good,” said Williams, 39.

The paper butterflies created throughout the workshops will be hung outside the museum’s Impact Lab shortly after the last workshop on Aug. 26.

“Everybody who comes to visit us will see these butterflies,” said Turner. “They’re part of a huge collective of people all around St. Louis who are remembering these children and Pavel.”

So far, about 50 people have attended the first four workshops. There are still five workshops left, and museum employees hope to see a lot more people participate.

“I saw this event, and it sounded right up my alley,” said Lisa Binowitz, 61.

The recently retired Creve Coeur resident learned about the workshops after attending a recent event at the museum that hosted the Muny’s cast of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

“I live right across the street, and I want to come here more often,” said Binowitz, who belongs to Congregation Temple Israel and Congregation B’nai Amoona.

Workshop participants are encouraged to color more than one butterfly or come to multiple workshops.

For Livshits, who lives within walking distance of the museum at Covenant Place in Creve Coeur, she wants to come back again next week to make another butterfly.

“I’m glad to be a part of this,” she said.

These workshops at the St. Louis Holocaust Museum take place from 11 a.m. to noon each Monday through Aug. 26. The workshops are free, but pre-registration is requested. More details here.