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  Announcing the 2024 Holocaust Museum Houston Yom HaShoah Scholarship Recipient
Holocaust Museum Houston is pleased to offer a scholarship for high school students that honors the memory of those who perished during the Holocaust. The scholarship is being presented as a part of the Museum’s citywide commemoration of Yom HaShoah (Day of Remembrance) for the victims of the Holocaust. The scholarship is open to high school students in grades 9-12 whose school is located within the Region 4 Education Service Center area (see http://www.esc4.net/). The student selected to receive the scholarship must be available to attend the Yom HaShoah commemoration service on Sunday, May 5, 2024. Students who apply for the scholarship must submit a 500 to 1,000-word essay answering the question, “Why is it important to remember the Holocaust today?” The Museum would like to congratulate the winner of the 2024 Holocaust Museum Houston Yom HaShoah Scholarship competition, Gaby Brown, a sophomore at The Emery/Weiner School. The essays were reviewed by our committee. The scholarship is a one-time award of $500 and is being presented with the generous support of the David Barg Endowment Fund and the Morgan Family Endowment Fund. For more information, please contact the museum at [email protected] or 713-527-1642 . Jewish JournalConnect. inform. inspire., holocaust remembrance project celebrates student essays, awards scholarships.
 On July 15, the charitable arm of the international law firm Holland & Knight held an awards dinner for its annual Holocaust Remembrance Project essay contest at the Skirball Cultural Center, the program’s first culmination in Los Angeles in its 16-year history. The dinner celebrated essay submissions of 10 teens from across the country, nine of them recent high school graduates and one who will be a senior this fall. “It’s hard to think of Holland & Knight without the Holocaust Remembrance Project,” said Angela Ruth, executive director of the Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation. “It’s become so ingrained with the culture of the firm that we cannot imagine not doing this anymore.” Stephen Smith, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation, gave the keynote speech, praising the poetic and incisive language of the contest’s top essay, “The Guys,” by David Cain Day of Colorado. Day wrote of his childhood memories of hearing stories from Holocaust survivors he met regularly over breakfasts at McDonald’s. In the essay, Cain describes a survivor’s tattoo as a “malevolent stain,” a metaphor that Smith said holds up with the strongest Holocaust literature. Day and two other top winners, Sara Brenner of New York and Donald Mayfield Brown of Mississippi, received college scholarship funds on top of the $2,500 awarded to the 10 first-place essayists. Approximately 2,000 students submitted essays for the contest, Ruth said, and nearly 300 people attended the awards dinner, among them Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jan Perry and Councilman Paul Krekorian. Actor Glynn Turman, who appears on the HBO series “The Wire” and who co-founded a free summer camp for at-risk youth, served as the evening’s master of ceremonies. Prior to the awards dinner, a modest but poignant art exhibition showcased Holocaust-inspired works. Filmmaker Hilary Helstein stood alongside pieces that were spotlighted in her recent documentary, “As Seen Through These Eyes.” Narrated by Maya Angelou, Helstein’s film highlights Holocaust victims’ resistance through art. Click here to read the contest’s top-winning essay, “The Guys,” written by David Cain Day of Colorado. Click here to read all of the winning essays. Did you enjoy this article?You'll love our roundtable., editor's picks.  Israel and the Internet Wars – A Professional Social Media Review The Invisible Student: A Tale of Homelessness at UCLA and USC What Ever Happened to the LA Times? Who Are the Jews On Joe Biden’s Cabinet? You’re Not a Bad Jewish Mom If Your Kid Wants Santa Claus to Come to Your House No Labels: The Group Fighting for the Political CenterLatest articles.  No Gifts, Please – a poem for Parsha Korach Print Issue: The Forgotten Five | July 5, 2024 Harvard’s Divinity and Rabbi Nahman’s Bridge Rabbis of LA | Rabbi Stein Energized by His New Position at B’nai David Campus Watch July 4, 2024 Rabbi Dr. Jo David’s Vegan BrisketSummer blush— sweet fruit galettes, award-winning israeli director talks about new film about love and tragedy, god’s gang: how an israeli is leading the charge for world peace through cartoons, amy rogers: food appreciation, everything seasoning and a recipe for writing a recipe.  Table for Five: KorachKorach v. Moses  The Forgotten FiveAmong the hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza are five Americans. Why are so few people talking about them?  Haredim Are Human TooThe state cannot carry on its back a growing sector that disconnects itself from duties and asks for a multitude of rights.  What Churchill KnewChurchill rightly understood the miraculous nature of the Jewish story.  Feeling the Spirit of July 4th in IsraelIf there has been one fundamental freedom that has benefitted the Jews in America, it is surely the freedom to practice our religion and express our Jewish identity as we see fit.  Spielberg Says Antisemitism Is “No Longer Lurking, But Standing Proud” Like 1930s Germany Young Actress Juju Brener on Her “Hocus Pocus 2” Role Behind the Scenes of “Jeopardy!” with Mayim Bialik Gedaliah Gurfein: The People’s TalmudMore news and opinions than at a shabbat dinner, right in your inbox..
Denver student wins essay contest on Holocaust Cain Day, of Denver, remembers when he learned about the Holocaust. He was eight. It wasn't from a teacher or from a book. It was at McDonald's. Years later, he wrote an essay about the experience. It just landed him the top prize in a national contest from the Holocaust Remembrance Project. It's a $7,500 scholarship. Day will be a freshman at the University of Denver next month. He reads part of his winning essay and talks more about why he wrote it. Latest Stories Pilot changed his mind before engine failure, Steamboat Springs crash in June Too hot to work? Biden administration wants to protect people from extreme heat as temperature rise in Colorado Colorado Arts Spotlight: Things to know and do around the state July 5 – 7 Wife of unarmed Black man fatally shot by Aurora police says husband complied with police ordersSign up for our newsletters. It takes a good day’s drive to cover Colorado, but we’ll help you do it in a few minutes. Our newsletters bring you a closer look at the stories that affect you and the music that inspires you.
Upcoming EventsCrosscurrents music festival, watch live: cpr classical presents: aspen music festival at the denver art museum: beethoven’s “triple” concerto, join indie 102.3 at the underground music showcase, listen to a colorado postcard.  Colorado Postcards are snapshots of our colorful state in sound. They give brief insights into our people and places, our flora and fauna, and our past and present, from every corner of Colorado. Listen now. The Holocaust: Students reflect in award-winning essays, projectsIn her award-winning high school essay, Emily Salko asks others to imagine the freedoms that Mira Kimmelman lost as Nazi Germany intensified its persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. “The freedom that we possess is something that we all take for granted each day,” she wrote. “Ask yourself, are you allowed to attend school? Walk the streets of your town? Ride a bus? Live in your own house? Answering ‘yes’ means that you already have 10 times the freedom that Mira Kimmelman had, and this little freedom is what sparked her appreciation of the things such as the clothes on her back, her shoes, and even her own roof.” Emily, a sophomore at Oak Ridge High School, is one of the 14 students who won awards in the first Mira Kimmelman “Learning from the Holocaust” Contest in 2021. Kimmelman told her story of surviving the Holocaust to students, civic and religious groups in East Tennessee for more than 50 years before her death in 2019. Her sons, Benno and Gene Kimmelman, created the essay and project contest for Tennessee high school and middle school students, sponsored by the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, to carry on her legacy and ensure that her voice continues to be heard through her books and recorded talks. The contest offers prize money ranging from $150 to $750. Emily watched videos of Kimmelman's speeches and read articles about her and about anti-Semitism before writing her essay while she was in the ninth grade. She noticed that Kimmelman, as a teen, chose to take family photos, rather than other possessions, when her family was forced to leave home for a ghetto. “She was so brave to continue moving forward and just fighting to stay alive for her family,” Emily said of Kimmelman after she received the first place high school essay award. She wrote the essay when the Black Lives Matter movement was gaining attention in the news, and she realized that people facing discrimination need to have strength and resilience. “I think her biggest message I would continue to use is just kindness toward everyone. You shouldn’t judge people based on who they are as a group, based on race or religion. You should get to know someone,” Emily said. “You should not treat them differently because you might look different or believe in something different.” Along with the mantra of “never forget” often heard in relation to the Holocaust, Benno and Gene hope students entering the contest learn their mother’s lessons of tolerance and kindness. The essays reflect that, as the students wrote about being moved by her bravery and resilience and about how they are applying her lessons today. “Many of the essays touched on current injustices and suggested ways they could be addressed,” said contest judge Katie High, of Knoxville, a retired University of Tennessee vice president for academic affairs and a member of the Tennessee Holocaust Commission. “The writers were giving world-wide atrocities serious thought, which was impressive. I wanted to cheer the students, and their teachers, because it was obvious teaching and learning were going on.” High, who served as interim dean at the UT Martin College of Business after her retirement, said much of the Holocaust Commission’s work is focused on middle school students, and that work becomes more difficult as more Holocaust survivors die. “When they talk to a group of middle school students and show their tattoos and talk about what it’s like to be in the camps, kids are horrified, but in awe of these survivors, because of their resilience,” High said. “You have planted something in their hearts.” Emmanuelle Wolf-Dubin, first-place winner in the middle school essay contest, wrote that hearing a rabbi challenge listeners to think not only of Israelis and their suffering but Palestinians, as well, reminded her of Kimmelman’s message of seeing the kindness in all people. Her story, she wrote, is a message of ideals that Emmanuelle can only hope to achieve. “As a young adult, she would be imprisoned in the deadliest concentration camp called Auschwitz and was forced into the nearly unimaginable march to Bergen-Belsen,” wrote Emmanuelle, a student at Meigs Magnet Middle School in Nashville. “Yet, after all of these horrors at the hands of one of the most evil men in recorded history, she still preached lovingkindness in a world that seemed apathetic to her plight. Instead of focusing on that, she zeroed in on the people who helped, the people of all nationalities, races, and religions who saved her and her counterparts across Europe,” Emmanuelle wrote. Chloe Collins, a student at Oakdale Middle School in Morgan County, said she read Kimmelman’s first book, "Echoes from the Holocaust," before writing her essay, which was awarded second place in the middle school contest. “Mira Kimmelman … had to say good-bye to the family she loved, she had all of her dignity stripped away, she saw things that no one should ever have to see, she lived in a world of hate, and she felt unwanted in a country that was once her own,” wrote Chloe, an eighth grader this year. “I am thankful for Mira Kimmelman’s message of hope and tolerance that will live on forever.” Though not a Tennessee student, Soha Sherwani earned a “Notable Achievement” award from contest judges for her essay comparing the Holocaust with the current Chinese government repression of the Uigher people, a small and mostly Muslim minority. “The Uigher population is being forced into concentration camps, which are dubbed ‘re-education’ camps by the government, and are forced to partake in direct violations of their Islamic faith,” Soha wrote as a high school senior in Houston, Texas. “The Uighur Muslims are exploited for cheap labor and physically abused ... it is happening again.” Now a college freshman, Soha said she read about the essay contest online as she was seeking scholarship opportunities and was moved by the emotion in Kimmelman’s words. She could teach and spread love through her pain, Soha said. “For Ms. Kimmelman, her perception was undoubtedly changed by the two integral lessons she learned surviving the Holocaust: that there are always beacons of light in the darkness and that humanity must uphold its responsibility to learn and act from instances of injustices,” Soha wrote. In her essay, Soha urges those concerned to join her with their voices in protesting, spreading awareness, and educating others on the injustice happening now. First- and second-place awards for middle school contest projects went to teams of students at Oak Ridge’s Robertsville Middle School. “The Shoah Proliferates” won first place. The team used an online survey to ask students to allow their names to be used on a poster to help remember the 6 million who died in the Holocaust, saying that people remember what they can be part of. Nathanael Peters, Lennox Pack, Aiden Cantu and Kyleigh Langdale are the team members who created the project, using a QR code for business cards that students used to access the survey. All are ninth graders at Oak Ridge High School now. A poster with a poem and image of broken glass, symbolizing Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass when Nazis targeted synagogues, was included. Kyleigh created the poster, and Lennox wrote the poem: Think of them not as 6 million lives lost, But 6 million lives remembered. Thousands more put through exhaust, And families dismembered. These depressing tales aren’t fiction, Rather they are tales to stand the test of time. It is our job to remember, These lives left devoured. The second-place team, Julia Hussey, Alia Oakes, Teagan Tate and Audrey Thompson, proposed a mural for a hallway at their school. They created artwork with Holocaust symbols, including barbed wire on a red background on one side, and symbols of peace and hope, including swallows and flowers on a blue background. A Star of David represents martyrdom and heroism. Haley Braden, second-place high school essay winner from Anderson County High School, wrote that she knew little about the Holocaust before entering the contest. Her essay urges her generation to follow in Kimmelman’s footsteps, to “keep a positive attitude and mindset through the darkest hours. Because with this hope comes peace and love.” Haley wrote, “We can embody her message when looking at the face of injustice. When you see something that is wrong, be sure to right it. Stand up for people who are treated wrongly and cannot stand up for themselves.” Elizabeth Bernheisel, of Dyersburg Middle School, focused on Kimmelman’s second book, "Life Beyond the Holocaust: Memories and Realities," in her third-place middle school essay. The book, she wrote, offers insights on how Holocaust survivors recover, rebuild and live normal lives after experiencing unimaginable trauma. “Through letters, reunions, and travels back to Europe, Mira Kimmelman tells her story, as well as the stories of those no longer able to speak for themselves,” Elizabeth wrote. “She also highlights the importance of remembering the atrocities of the Holocaust, as well as the restoration that must follow.” 
Deadline: Holocaust Remembrance Essay/Video ContestFeb 24, 2023 11:30 p.m.. North Central's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee is sponsoring a Holocaust Remembrance Day essay/video contest. The contest is open to currently enrolled NCMC students, and cash prizes are awarded for first, second and third place entries. Essay ThemeAnswer ONE of the following questions via essay (500 – 750 words) or video (4 – 6 minutes): "As a nation, what can the United States learn from how it dealt with the refugee crisis during the Holocaust, and how can Americans apply those lessons to future global refugee crises?" "During the Holocaust, the Nazis positioned the Jews of Europe as others. As a nation, how can the United States ensure we do not treat people as others and ensure we develop an inclusive society?" Contest Rules
Judging CriteriaWinners will be selected according to the following criteria:
1 st Place Prize: $500 2 nd Place Prize: $300 3 rd Place Prize: $100 Winners will be announced on Friday, March 3, 2023.  Why We Remember the HolocaustThis video provides an overview of the Holocaust, Days of Remembrance, and why we as a nation remember this history. Estelle Laughlin, Holocaust Survivor: Memory is what shapes us. Memory is what teaches us. We must understand that’s where our redemption is. [Text on screen] Between 1933 and 1945, the German government, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, carried out the systematic persecution of and murder of Europe’s Jews. This genocide is now known as the Holocaust. The Nazi regime also persecuted and killed millions of other people it considered politically, racially, or socially unfit. The Allies’ victory ended World War II, but Nazi Germany and its collaborators had left millions dead and countless lives shattered. Sara Bloomfield, Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: I think the important thing to understand about this cataclysmic event is that it happened in the heart of Europe. Germany was respected around the world for its leading scientists, its physicians, its theologians. It was a very civilized, advanced country. It was a young democracy, but it was a democracy. And yet it descended not only into social collapse but world war and eventually mass murder. Margit Meissner, Holocaust Survivor: A strong man came to power in Germany whose ideas were that Germany has to create a national community, which would include only the Aryan race, which he considered superior, and all the people who did not belong to the Aryan race could be eliminated. With planning and propaganda, he was able to convince most of the German people to go along with him, insensitive to what happened to the Jews who had basically been their former neighbors. And he managed to build concentration camps and killing centers and finally gas chambers to annihilate six million Jews and at the same time also millions of others, murdered in a systematic, government-sponsored way. Raye Farr, Film Curator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: And it’s made up of so many people who participated in different ways, who made it possible. Rev. Dr. Chris Leighton, Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies: People who follow orders without question, bystanders who watch and do nothing, ordinary men and women simply going with the flow. Raye Farr, Film Curator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: The events and the results of the Holocaust were so devastating. It was an extreme that we can barely imagine. Rev. Dr. Chris Leighton, Institute for Christian and Jewish Studies: It’s so mind-boggling that the temptations to forget and to repress, to just put it out of mind, are very real. Raye Farr, Film Curator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: But we remember. We remember because it is an unthinkable scar on humanity. We need to understand what human beings are capable of. Barack Obama, President of the United States: We gather today to mourn the loss of so many lives and celebrate those who saved them, honor those who survived, and contemplate the obligations of the living. Kadian Pow, Museum Educator, Smithsonian Institution: Days of Remembrance is our nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust—this time that was both a blight on the history of humanity but also a shining moment for the people who were brave enough to put an end to it. Sara Bloomfield, Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: We are remembering, first and foremost, all the victims, and that is not only the Jewish victims, but there were many non-Jewish victims. Of course, the Jews were the primary target. Estelle Laughlin, Holocaust Survivor: The millions of innocent people, including my family and friends, who were killed because they were of the wrong religion, because they had no means of protecting themselves. Sara Bloomfield, Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: It’s also important to remember the rescuers. These were people who risked not only their own lives, sometimes the lives of their family, to save a fellow human being. And we also remember our American soldiers who were fighting to win World War II and in the course of that, liberated these concentration camps. Col. Michael Underkofler, U.S. Air Force Reserve: Those that arrived at the camps in 1945 and were just horrified at what they saw. Carly Gjolaj, Museum Educator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: And that was a huge task for the American soldiers: to help bring humanity back to these people who had been dehumanized for years, to give them medical care. Lt. Col. Terrance Sanders, U.S. Army: Looking back allows us to understand how important it is for us to serve in a country where we have the strength and the might and the will to defend those that are defenseless. Rabbi M. Bruce Lustig, Washington Hebrew Congregation: So Days of Remembrance is an opportunity for us to remember the suffering that was and the efforts that were made to put an end to such suffering, and it’s a call to conscience today in our world to make sure that we aren’t the silent ones standing by, contributing to the suffering of others. Margit Meissner, Holocaust Survivor: In 1945, at the end of the war, I would have thought that there would never be another Holocaust, that the world was so shocked by what had happened that the world would not permit that. And yet you see what happened in Bosnia, what happened in Rwanda, what happened in Darfur. So there’s still millions of people being persecuted because of their ethnicity. Sara Bloomfield, Director, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: It’s really a moral challenge to us to do more in our own lives when we confront injustice or hatred or genocide. Bridget Conley-Zilkic, Genocide Prevention Educator, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Those who suffered and died in the Holocaust, we can honor them today by not being silent. Remembering ties the past and the present together with a powerful, simple thread: “This is not right.” Margit Meissner, Holocaust Survivor: The important thing is that one should not become indifferent to the suffering of others, that one should not stand by and just raise one’s hands and say, “There’s nothing I can do, I’m just a little one person,” because I think what everyone of us does matters. Estelle Laughlin, Holocaust Survivor: That’s not enough to curse the darkness of the past. Above all, we have to illuminate the future. And I think that on the Day of Remembrance the most important thing is to remember the humanity that is in all of us to leave the world better for our children and for posterity. This SectionListen to or read Holocaust survivors’ experiences, told in their own words through oral histories, written testimony, and public programs.
Montgomery Blair High School's Online Student Newspaper — Thursday, July 4, 2024Holocaust essay contest announced. Annual contest offers prizes up to $5000 Information compiled from a Holland and Knight Charitable Foundation, Inc. press release. The Holland and Knight Charitable Foundation, Inc. has announced the start of its 2005 Holocaust Remembrance Project essay contest. The contest challenges students from across the United States to write essays explaining the importance of educating new generations about the Holocaust, and the essays must also include suggestions of what students can do now to stop today's discrimination, prejudice and violence. Submissions are due April 15 and must be under 1,200 words. Ten students will be chosen for each of the first, second and third place prize categories. First-place category students will be awarded scholarships up to $5000 and a six-day, all-expense paid visit to Washington, D.C. and the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Second-place winners will receive $300 in scholarship money, and third-place winners will receive $100. For more information, as well as complete contest rules, guidelines and entry forms, click here . Jordan Goldstein. Jordan's favorite season is winter, and she likes all weather except for rain that drizzles down for three days straight. More » No comments. Please ensure that all comments are mature and responsible; they will go through moderation. Latest Content
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Holocaust Remembrance Project Connects Survivors, Students2005 wootton graduate julia kolchinksy, a ukranian immigrant, among essay contest winners.. Tuesday, August 2, 2005 Julia Kolchinsky was mostly thinking about the money when she submitted an essay to the Holocaust Remembrance Project, a 10-year-old national essay contest for high school students. The 2005 Thomas Wootton High School graduate had been accepted to Georgetown University and the University of Maryland but didn’t have quite the money she needed to attend either. She had found the contest in an on-line scholarship database, bookmarked it, and then forgot about it until two days before the contest deadline. “In all honesty I needed the money,” Kolchinsky said. But she got much more than that. “I could walk away from this not getting anything and I would be so blessed regardless. This experience has been amazing,” she said. KOLCHINSKY AND nine other winners were recognized July 28 at an awards dinner at the J.W. Marriott in Washington, D.C., attended by more than 300 people, including Washington Mayor Anthony Williams, veteran journalist Daniel Schorr, the keynote speaker, and more than 10 Holocaust survivors. Master of ceremonies William S. Sessions, a Holland and Knight partner and former director of the FBI, introduced the survivors individually. The group received a prolonged, standing ovation. The Holocaust Remembrance Project began in 1994 in Florida in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of D-Day and the passage of a state law there that required Holocaust education in schools. It is sponsored by the Holland and Knight Charitable Foundation, an arm of the Florida-based national law firm. The contest asks high school students to write a 1200-word, research-based essay on the Holocaust and Holocaust remembrance issues. In its first year, the then-statewide contest drew just 98 entries. The next year, 217, and the third year, 429. In 2001, the contest went national and received 2,050 essays. This year, organizers got 3,000 responses, from all 50 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and numerous U.S. military bases abroad. They expect more than 5,000 next year. Holland and Knight attorneys volunteer to evaluate the essays. “As a Jew, who all four parents and great grandparents emigrated here to escape both the pogroms and later persecution against the Jews [the project means] a great deal to me,” said Bonni Kaufman, a Potomac resident and attorney at Holland and Knight. “I remember growing up sitting in temple with survivors and looking at the numbers on their arms.” Kaufman joined the firm just seven months ago and said she has been extremely impressed with the level of community involvement. “They just really care about it, and they’re not doing it for press or for making the firm look good,” Kaufman said. She joked, “which is unusual in lawyers.” “The essays are amazing. They’re absolutely amazing,” said Bethesda resident Janis Schiff, a co-chair of this year’s dinner and a judge for several years. “It’s really been a pleasure to read them.” FOR THE 10 contest winners, Thursday’s dinner capped off a week spent with six of the survivors, hearing their stories and visiting sites like the Holocaust Museum and U.S. Capitol. “I can’t put it into words how amazing these people are. They give you something to strive for and something to live for,” Kolchinsky said. “One of them is 84 and he lives as if he’s just been born. They’ve had these experiences, they’ve had their families ripped away, they’ve been spat on, treated as if they were animals and dirt, and yet they have no grudges. They’re not cynical. They embrace … every instant of their lives and it’s just so awe-inspiring.” Those words are especially resonant given Kolchinsky’s background. Born in the Ukraine, her parents emigrated to the United States when she was 6 to escape anti-Semitism there. “They came for me. They had great careers back there, great friends,” Kolchinsky said. “They did it for me, so that I could have an education free from being called a Judee, which is the name for Jews. … Even today it’s strongly, strongly anti-Semitic.” Kolchinsky was extremely close to her great-grandmother, a Holocaust survivor who Kolchinsky visited every Sunday for years before her death three years ago. “She was just an inspirational person. She developed … delusions, in her old age and she thought that a Nazi had come back to life and was trying to kill her. So the Holocaust continued to haunt her for the rest of her life,” Kolchinsky said. Her great-grandfather, a Ukrainian soldier, died in the war. Her grandfather survived the Holocaust and was present at the July 28 dinner. During high school, Kolchinsky taught lessons to seventh-graders at Robert Frost Middle School, including a week-long unit on the Holocaust. In spite of all that experience with the Holocaust, the week with the survivors left Kolchinsky — an aspiring writer and former editor of the Wootton literary magazine — grasping for words. For young people, it is easy for the Holocaust to remain purely academic, a subject they hear about in school but have no real access to, said Tom Holcombe, director of the project. The week spent with survivors provides a human face and connection to the stories of the Holocaust for the students — a connection that is critically important as the time nears when no living survivors will remain. For Kolchinsky, the week hinged on a moment when she was listening to Alice Masters, a Czech-born survivor who escaped her country on one of the last Kindertransport refugee trains to England. Masters read from a letter she had received from her mother, heartbroken to be separated from her daughter, over the empty seat at the Passover table. “I hadn’t been able to cry over my great-grandmother in the two years that she’s passed away,” Kolchinsky said. “And when she said that I just realized just how big a part of my life my great-grandmother was and how there is that missing piece. And I let myself cry. And I sang over and over in my head the Russian songs that I used to play for her every Sunday. And I just cried. It made me see just how important every instant of life is, every breath, that we need to take advantage of it, not repress anything.” IN LIGHT OF experiences like that one — part of a week during which participants say they make lifelong friendships — the awards dinner was perhaps only a celebratory afterthought. But speaker after speaker at the event reminded the attendees that numerous acts of genocide have taken place since the Holocaust — in Congo and Cambodia and Rwanda — and that one is taking place right now, in the Darfur region of Sudan. Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb of Adat Shalom Congregation noted that he and 2004 keynote speaker Gen. Wesley Clark had both invoked the genocide in Darfur at the previous year’s event. “To our grave shame, we have talked much but done little since,” he said. In his keynote address, Schorr read from the script he wrote and voiced upon visiting Auschwitz in 1959, when the Nazi concentration camp was still little known abroad. He then excoriated his own generation of journalists for half-hearted coverage of the Holocaust, and for giving more than 50 times as much coverage to Michael Jackson this year than to the death of an estimated 200,000 people in Sudan. “Please do it better than we did,” Schorr said. “It’s not only a question of the memory of Holocaust but the world and America counts on the young journalists of today to try and see that’s today’s holocausts are noticed and something is done about it.” More like this story
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Follow Us @FollowFairfaxContents of this site are © Copyright 2024 Ellington. All rights reserved. A Poem That Shows How to Remember the HolocaustRaphael Lemkin offered a reminder that genocides destroy more than lives.  Today, Jews around the world mark Yom HaShoah, the day of Holocaust remembrance. Yet where once the memory of the Holocaust promised to unite the world in the pursuit of global justice, now it divides us. In Eastern Europe and the Middle East alike, Holocaust history is currently weaponized in all manner of political disputes. In the United States, the invocation of Holocaust analogies once signaled that a heated political debate had reached its end—now it frequently marks the beginning. Even the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, an intergovernmental organization dedicated to promoting global Holocaust education, has become enmeshed in debates about the legal definition of anti-Semitism. These battles over the memory of the Holocaust stem from the problem of its uniqueness. They pit the appreciation of the singular nature of the crime against the need to apply its lessons to other past atrocities and present-day dangers. They confront the challenge of comparing genocides without slipping into moral relativism, on the one hand, and the challenge of retreating into facile Holocaust exceptionalism on the other. One way to approach these dilemmas comes from the work of Raphael Lemkin, the Polish Jewish lawyer who coined the term genocide . He left behind a widely varied body of work when he died in 1959, including memoirs and legal texts. But it’s a poem we recently recovered, which he wrote in 1957, that might offer us a way to navigate these tensions. Michael Oren: The many Holocausts Lemkin is better known today as an international lawyer and activist than as a poet. Born in 1900 in Russian Belarus, he embarked on a career after World War I as a public prosecutor in newly independent Poland. At the same time, he worked as an editor for one of the most famous Yiddish-language newspapers of the day, the Warsaw Haynt , where he wrote a legal-advice column; he also wrote essays and poetry in Hebrew and Yiddish. Deeply concerned about the threat of fascism, in 1933 Lemkin launched an international legal campaign to protect Jews and other European racial and religious minorities from persecution. That effort failed, and it triggered an anti-Semitic backlash that cost him his government post. Lemkin lost nearly his entire family in the Holocaust. During the war he fled via Lithuania and Sweden to the United States, where he embarked once more on his quest for an international law against what he now called genocide. Lemkin’s campaign led to the 1948 United Nations’ Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which took effect in 1951. Most of what we know of Lemkin’s ideas and efforts is based on his writings in English. His prose writings in Yiddish and Polish have only recently come to light , and his Hebrew poetry had long been presumed lost. We were therefore surprised to discover this poem hiding in the pages of an old Israeli newspaper. In a prefatory note to the poem , which was published in 1957 in Al HaMishmar , a newspaper sponsored by the left-wing Zionist faction Hashomer Hatzair, Lemkin said that “the world had begun to forget the great crime against the Jews.” In response, he turned not to law or history, but to literature. Lemkin’s poem takes the form of a classic Hebrew lamentation over the tragic losses suffered by the Jewish people, whose names had been blotted out by their persecutors. (We’ve republished the full poem, and posted our own translation .) In language echoing the Israelite prophets, medieval Ashkenazic liturgical elegies, and the modern Hebrew poet Haim Nahman Bialik, Lemkin evokes the classic imagery of the ruined Jewish cityscape. In his verse, dogs and pigs defile half-buried Jewish bones as a terrible silence reigns in the empty streets. Like Bialik’s Kishinev in pre–World War I Russia and Isaiah’s Jerusalem millennia before, the ransacked, desolate city symbolizes the vanquished Jewish people, who, to paraphrase Isaiah, live on only in the form of “a sign and a remembrance.” Lemkin’s anguished text also explains why the world had already begun to forget the Holocaust. Genocide represents more than a large-scale physical assault on human bodies, he suggests; it is also an attack on the very existence of minority cultures. In a genocide, books are burned and memories are extinguished. Lemkin describes a silent piano and a muted violin, whose owners have been disappeared and whose songs will never be heard again. “In the school, where you once taught,” he wrote , “Your gifted student will be punished, / For praising your name.” Lemkin’s lament spoke directly to the fate of the law he’d championed. In his original vision , the crime of genocide encompassed any systematic eliminationist attack on a group’s collective existence via its culture—the targeting of art, books, religion, language. That is why he’d hoped the UN convention would include both physical and cultural aspects of genocide. To his great dismay, the latter half of his definition was dropped from the convention, falling victim to Cold War realpolitik: the great powers’ fear of being held accountable for their own colonial and racial injustices, and the broader Western reluctance to acknowledge the specifically Jewish character of the Holocaust. But Lemkin’s lost poem reminds us of something valuable. When we remember the Holocaust only as a universal parable of racial hatred and religious stigmatization, we miss its full import as an attack against Jews as Jews. If we likewise condition the memory of the Holocaust on its relevance to contemporary political issues, we risk distorting the crime itself and dishonoring its Jewish victims once more. Yet tribalism is no less dangerous. The uniqueness of the Holocaust does not require us to deny the possibility of comparison with other genocides. Walter Reich: Seventy-five years after Auschwitz, anti-Semitism is on the rise Lemkin titled his poem not “Shoah” or “Holocaust” but “Genocide.” The supremacist hatred he described in it, “on account of race and religion,” can endanger any people. The crime in question is ultimately a universal one: the demonization of difference. All genocides share some common features, Lemkin insisted. Systematic cultural destruction and mass slaughter represent interdependent facets of a malevolent assault on minority identity, a philosophical rejection of the very idea of human diversity. Physical and cultural genocide are two sides of the same coin. The problem today is not, as is often claimed, that we possess too little Holocaust memory. Neither, for that matter, do we suffer from Holocaust-memory overload. After all, memory is not data. We cannot simply bundle it into packets that we then deposit in the hands of the next generation or plug into moral algorithms. Nor is memory a sacred flame that we must zealously guard lest powerful winds—or competing fires—threaten to overwhelm it. Rather, memory is an ongoing process of active reckoning with the past from the vantage point of the present. The duty of remembrance is inseparable from the burden of moral reasoning. The Shoah deserves its own specific day, but the lessons we extract from its memory can never be isolated from the other dangers that plague the world. Meeting this challenge requires us to hold in balance the Holocaust’s unique features and its broader meaning as a form of genocide and mass atrocity. What was true of the Holocaust is also true of every great act of human evil. Each is horrific in its own way and must be remembered in its specificity, yet all feed into the record of history that demands our attention and inspires our vigilance. Some of the content on this website requires JavaScript to be enabled in your web browser to function as intended. This includes, but is not limited to: navigation, video, image galleries, etc. While the website is still usable without JavaScript, it should be enabled to enjoy the full interactive experience. 
» Annual Holocaust Art & Writing ContestView winning entries from the 25th annual holocaust art & writing contest and all previous years on our previous contests page., 25th annual holocaust art & writing contest, answering the call of memory: choosing to act.  Students will be eligible to win a first prize award of $400 in each category. Educators and schools will also be eligible to win a first prize of $200 each. First-place student winners in the United States, their parents/ guardians, and teachers will be invited to participate in an expense-paid study trip June 24-28, 2024, to visit the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, the Japanese American National Museum, and other sites in Los Angeles, as well as to meet with members of The 1939 Society, a community of Holocaust survivors, descendants, and friends. Funding permitting, this year’s U.S. winning participants will be joined by first-place students living outside of the United States. In addition, first-place student entries will be posted on Chapman University’s contest website. Students awarded second prize in each category will receive $200 and their sponsoring educator and school will receive $100 each. InspirationFor many survivors of the Holocaust, speaking of their experiences was exceedingly difficult, even gut-wrenching. It meant reliving their own suffering and even more painfully, experiencing anew the loss of those they loved. After the war, most survivors were determined to focus on the present and the future, not on the past. If they had children, they often felt it would be wrong to burden them with the painful memories of their own youth. The past couldn’t be changed—although Holocaust deniers would try to do so—but the future could. In time, as survivors thought about the future, they realized that their memories could play a role in shaping the future. Perhaps their memories could educate people to the danger of remaining silent in the face of bigotry, racism, and antisemitism. Perhaps sharing the stories of the courageous few who had chosen to stand with those persecuted would inspire people now to do the same. Perhaps their memories could teach people that standing up for justice and human rights is what we should expect of ourselves and others, rather than be the exception. When Miep Gies was asked why she risked her life to hide the Otto Frank family in the secret attic in Amsterdam, she replied that she only did what any other good Dutch person would do. She didn’t see anything remarkable or heroic about her actions. Some people became rescuers as a result of a spontaneous decision. Others surprised even themselves by their actions. Oskar Schindler was a Nazi businessman who sought to make his fortune from the misfortune of Jews in Poland. Yet, over time, he came to see his Jewish workers as individuals whose well-being was entrusted to him. What might have once been unthinkable to him—spending his entire fortune to save his 1200 Jewish workers—became what he expected of himself. Survivors also shared memories of how they helped one another, refusing to allow the inhumanity of their persecutors to dehumanize them. They told of words and actions that brought hope in the most desperate of times. They came to see that sharing their memories could give them strength and help them heal from trauma and do even more—their memories could inspire us today to engage in acts of tikkun olam , healing the world not by grand gestures but by even the smallest of actions wherever we see need and know we can make a difference. As the words of the Talmud inscribed on the ring given to Oskar Schindler by his workers said, “whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” How will Holocaust memory inspire you to act?
* Lists of testimonies that are one to two hours in length are available on the last page of the Educator Guide. 2. As you listen to the survivor’s or rescuer's testimony about their experiences, choose one specific memory that inspires you to action as a witness to a witness. How does this memory move you to answer the call of memory? Please note the timestamp from the video testimony where the specific word, phrase, or sentence occurs. 3. Write down a specific word, phrase, or sentence from the memory you have chosen that is the catalyst for your reflection and action. Through your creativity in art, poetry, prose, or film, explore this word, phrase, or sentence as central to both the survivor's or rescuer's specific Holocaust memory and to the action you will take as a itness to a witness in answering this call of memory. We encourage teachers to consult the Educator Guide for rubrics, specific criteria and other information. General Criteria
Art Criteria
Film Criteria
Poetry Criteria
Prose Criteria
The Holocaust Art & Writing ContestSponsored by. Chapman University The 1939 Society The Irving and Nancy Chase Endowment for Holocaust Education The Samueli Foundation Yossie and Dana Hollander With support fromUSC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education The Isidore and Penny Myers Foundation The Jerry and Sally Schwartz Endowment for Holocaust Education The Liner Family Foundation In partnership withCatholic Schools, Diocese of Orange David Labkovski Project Echoes & Reflections Facing History and Ourselves Holocaust Museum Los Angeles Orange County Department of Education South Carolina Council on the Holocaust In collaboration withMuseum of Tolerance United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Chapman University International PartnersForum for Dialogue, Poland Foundation for Genocide Education, Canada Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre, South Africa Memoria Viva Fundación, Chile Museo del Holocausto, Guatemala Sarah and Chaim Neuberger Holocaust Centre, Canada Important DatesEducator Workshops VIRTUAL December 5 @ 4:00 PM Register Entry Postmark Date: February 2, 2024 Digital Submission due date: February 5, 2024 Awards Ceremony March 15, 2024 23-24 ContestDownload the 23-24 contest brochure with inspiration, prompt and submission information. Download the 23-24 Educator's Guide with judging rubrics, common core connections and frequently asked questions about the contest. Music for Films!We are grateful to the Orange County Klezmers for making available at no cost to registered participants musical selections from their album Echoes of Vilna . These tracks may only be used for projects created for the Holocaust Art and Writing Contest. Request link to preview or download songs
The Holocaust History Museum
Sunday to Thursday: 09:00-17:00 Fridays and Holiday eves: 09:00-14:00 Yad Vashem is closed on Saturdays and all Jewish Holidays. Entrance to the Holocaust History Museum is not permitted for children under the age of 10. Babies in strollers or carriers will not be permitted to enter. 
Yad Vashem - The World Holocaust Remembrance Center General Information for Visitors Explore Our Digital Collections Resources for Educators Honoring the Righteous Research ProjectsFeatured videos, what was the holocaust.  Thematic and Chronological NarrativeAbout the Holocaust explores the history of the Holocaust thematically and chronologically. Each chapter in the narrative is divided into subchapters with explanatory texts. Useful related resources accompany the texts and may include photos, video testimonies, documentary footage, documents, artifacts and art. More...
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 "The work of Yad Vashem is critical and necessary to remind the world of the consequences of hate" #GivingTuesday Donate to Educate Against Hate Interested in receiving information and updates from Yad Vashem? Worldwide antisemitism is on the rise. At Yad Vashem, we strive to make the world a better place by combating antisemitism through teacher training, international lectures and workshops and online courses. We need you to partner with us in this vital mission to #EducateAgainstHate New Yad Vashem website redirectionThe good news: The Yad Vashem website had recently undergone a major upgrade! The less good news: The page you are looking for has apparently been moved. We are therefore redirecting you to what we hope will be a useful landing page. For any questions/clarifications/problems, please contact: [email protected] Press the X button to continue Scholarships.com BlogHolocaust remembrance project scholarship. Numerous people have worked hard to keep the memories of the Holocaust alive. Despite their efforts, many students know little about the World War II years. By encouraging them to inquire about the stories and to research the violent acts that occurred during the Holocaust, the Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation hopes to help students learn from the past and to change the future. This year, thirty high school scholarships will be awarded to students who write the best, most-researched Holocaust essays. Those who participate will be asked to write a paper of no more than 1,200 words analyzing why the remembrance, history and lessons of the Holocaust must be passed on to a new generation. They must then suggest ways in which students can fight future prejudice and violence. Students whose essays show the greatest promise will be awarded scholarships ranging from $300 to $10,000. 1. Ten first-place winners will receive scholarships ranging between $2,500 and $10,000. They will also be awarded an all-expense-paid trip to the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. 2. Ten second-place winners will receive scholarships of $500. 3. Ten third-place winners will receive scholarships of $300. Eligibility: 1. Applicant must be 19 years old or younger. 2. Applicant must be enrolled as high school student in grades 9-12. 3. Applicant must be a resident of the U.S. or Mexico or must be a U.S. citizen living abroad. 4. First-place winners must agree to participate in the Washington, D.C. trip. April 30, 2008 by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time Required Material: 1. An essay of 1,200 words or less submitted online. 2. A works cited, reference page or bibliography Further details about the application process and about contacting the scholarship provider can be found by conducting a free college scholarship search . Once the search is completed, students eligible for the award will find it in their scholarship list. Doodle for Google ScholarshipTop 4 summer jobs for high school students, pg&e better together stem scholarship, we make it simple and match you to college scholarships you qualify for.. | ||||||
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The Holocaust Remembrance Project was designed to encourage the study of the Holocaust and how this watershed event in human history relates to our world today. ... the project involved a national college scholarship essay contest, scholarships for the top writers, and week-long, in-depth educational experience for the top writers, select ...
Prize: 1. Ten first-place winners will receive scholarships ranging between $2,500 and $10,000. They will also be awarded an all-expense-paid trip to the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. 2. Ten second-place winners will receive scholarships of $500. 3. Ten third-place winners will receive scholarships of $300. Eligibility: 1.
The Holocaust Remembrance Project is a national essay contest for high school students that is designed to encourage and promote the study of the Holocaust. Participation in this project encourages students to think responsibly, be aware of world conditions that undermine human dignity, and make decisions that promote the respect and value inherent in every person.
Students who apply for the scholarship must submit a 500 to 1,000-word essay answering the question, "Why is it important to remember the Holocaust today?" The Museum would like to congratulate the winner of the 2024 Holocaust Museum Houston Yom HaShoah Scholarship competition, Gaby Brown, a sophomore at The Emery/Weiner School.
On July 15, the charitable arm of the international law firm Holland & Knight held an awards dinner for its annual Holocaust Remembrance Project essay contest at the Skirball Cultural Center, the ...
The annual Holocaust Reflection Contest enables middle and high school students across the state of Florida to study the testimonies of Holocaust survivors in a creative way. Students are asked to find a survivor story that inspires them, and present their reflection in the form of: written expression: essay or poem.
Years later, he wrote an essay about the experience. It just landed him the top prize in a national contest from the Holocaust Remembrance Project. It's a $7,500 scholarship.
Her sons, Benno and Gene Kimmelman, created the essay and project contest for Tennessee high school and middle school students, sponsored by the Tennessee Holocaust Commission, to carry on her legacy and ensure that her voice continues to be heard through her books and recorded talks. The contest offers prize money ranging from $150 to $750.
• Viewing of the Holocaust Remembrance Association virtual march or attendance at a UH Jewish Studies event on the Holocaust. • Minimum 2.0 GPA or higher Requirements: • List your name, peoplesoft ID, Major, Minor, and GPA • In 900-1200 words, answer the following question based on your experience at the UH Jewish
Feb 24, 2023 11:30 p.m. North Central's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee is sponsoring a Holocaust Remembrance Day essay/video contest. The contest is open to currently enrolled NCMC students, and cash prizes are awarded for first, second and third place entries.
The Holocaust Remembrance Project is a national essay contest for high school students that is designed to encourage and promote the study of the Holocaust.... Students Scholarship Search
Survivor Reflections and Testimonies. Listen to or read Holocaust survivors' experiences, told in their own words through oral histories, written testimony, and public programs. This video provides an overview of the Holocaust, Days of Remembrance, and why we remember this history in the United States.
Barry and Phyllis Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education. The Rodgers Center sponsors a series of lectures and events that bring to Chapman distinguished scholars, innovative film makers, and inspiring survivors and rescuers of the Holocaust, as well as those who are voices for justice and human rights in our world today. Schedule of Events ».
Annual contest offers prizes up to $5000. Information compiled from a Holland and Knight Charitable Foundation, Inc. press release. The Holland and Knight Charitable Foundation, Inc. has announced the start of its 2005 Holocaust Remembrance Project essay contest. The contest challenges students from across the United States to write essays ...
The contest asks high school students to write a 1200-word, research-based essay on the Holocaust and Holocaust remembrance issues. In its first year, the then-statewide contest drew just 98 entries.
April 8, 2021. Today, Jews around the world mark Yom HaShoah, the day of Holocaust remembrance. Yet where once the memory of the Holocaust promised to unite the world in the pursuit of global ...
The Holocaust Remembrance Project is a national essay contest for high school students that is designed to encourage and promote the study of the Holocaust. Participation in this project encourages students to think responsibly, be aware of world conditions that undermine human dignity, and make decisions that promote the respect and value inherent in every person.
Participating schools may submit a total of three entries (one entry per student) in any combination of the following categories: art, film, poetry, or prose. Students will be eligible to win a first prize award of $400 in each category. Educators and schools will also be eligible to win a first prize of $200 each. guardians, and teachers will ...
Mira Kimmelman challenged students to reflect upon the history of the Holocaust and contemporary examples of injustice for over fifty years. The contest continues her work and legacy, asking Tennessee students to create projects that reflect how the lessons of the Holocaust are relevant to current events and their own lives. The contest has ...
The International Institute for Holocaust Research is a leading center for the study and dissemination of the history and legacy of the Holocaust. The institute supports and promotes research projects, publications, conferences, and educational materials on various aspects of the Holocaust, such as survivor testimonies, mass murder sites, illegal immigration, and Nazi ideology. The institute ...
Thematic and Chronological Narrative. About the Holocaust explores the history of the Holocaust thematically and chronologically. Each chapter in the narrative is divided into subchapters with explanatory texts. Useful related resources accompany the texts and may include photos, video testimonies, documentary footage, documents, artifacts and ...
Scholarship Information & Deadlines Scholarship information will be added as it is received. It is the responsibility of the student and/or parent to confirm posted scholarship information and inquire about specific scholarship opportunities at individual institutions and/or organizations. ... Holocaust Remembrance Project Essay Contest. 3/2 ...
Numerous people have worked hard to keep the memories of the Holocaust alive. Despite their efforts, many students know little about the World War II years. By... Students Scholarship Search. Get matched to scholarships you qualify for. ... Share your scholarship with eligible students.