Syd Moen was presented with the opportunity to design and curate the Holocaust Museum Houston Taking Flight exhibition, as well as one of the off-site Butterfly Project displays, sponsored by Neiman Marcus.

For Taking Flight, Syd drew inspiration from the Butterfly Project’s school curriculum.

The lesson is based on a 1942 poem, written by Pavel Friedmann, who was a child prisoner in the Terezin concentration camp in former Czechoslovakia. Friedmann was among the 12,000 children at Terezin who used art as a form of resistance and escapism from the Nazi death machine. Friedmann’s inspirational poem is contained in the book, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944.”

Between 1995 and 2015, more than 1.5 million handcrafted butterflies were sent to Holocaust Museum Houston by students/children to remember the 1.5 million children who perished in the Holocaust. In commemoration of the 20th anniversary of teaching the dangers of hatred, prejudice and apathy, Holocaust Museum Houston presented this special exhibition of handcrafted butterflies.