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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.

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Holocaust Education Resources: Contests for Students

Holocaust Remembrance Project The Holocaust Remembrance Project is an essay contest for high school students funded by the Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation. Scholarships and prizes are awarded to winning students writing about the annually selected Holocaust/human rights-related theme. 

Midwest Center for Holocaust Education (MCHE) The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education (MCHE) seeks to educate the public about the Holocaust and to prevent future genocide. MCHE offers community exhibits, lectures and programs, as well as a library and resource center for Holocaust education purposes. There is also access to a speakers’ bureau and information on the White Rose Student Essay Contest on the site, as well as links to Holocaust resources and a special link for educators. 

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum offers information about the exhibits in its Washington, D.C. museum as well as exhibits across the United States. The website also contains research tools including a Holocaust Encyclopedia, personal histories of those involved in the Holocaust, and online museum exhibitions. 

Annual Fellowships

The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies is pleased to offer fellowships to support significant research and writing about the Holocaust and related topics for projects that will benefit from a period of residence at the Museum and access to its resources. We welcome proposals from all relevant academic disciplines, including — but not limited to—anthropology, archaeology, art history, comparative genocide studies, film studies, geography, history, Jewish studies, law, material culture, religious studies, philosophy, political science, and psychology. Fellowships are designed for scholars at all levels of career, starting with PhD candidates (ABD). A principal focus of the fellowship program is to ensure the development of a new generation of scholars and those early in their careers are especially encouraged to apply. Faculty between appointments and scholars currently not affiliated with a university will also be considered. 

Mandel Center fellows have access to the Museum’s extensive resources, including:

• Approximately 120 million pages of Holocaust-related archival documents

• Library resources in more than 60 languages

• Hundreds of thousands of oral history, film, photo, art, artifacts, and memoir collections

• The Database of Holocaust Survivor and Victim Names

• More than 200 million images from the ITS Digital Archive

Benefits of Becoming a Mandel Center Fellow

Many Mandel Center fellows hit academic career milestones earlier than average, including the publication of monographs, promotion to professorship, and achievement of tenure or tenure-track positions. Mandel Center fellowships also open doors at non-academic institutions, including nonprofit, governmental and educational organizations. Former fellows have been heavily involved as experts in the Museum’s revitalization project for its Permanent Exhibition, have partnered with local institutions to implement commemorative ceremonies, and have even testified at Congressional hearings.

A fellowship at the Mandel Center provides scholars time to conduct research in the Museum's world-renowned archives, to write, and to participate in programs, all while working in an intimate scholarly environment designed for the most fruitful research experience possible. Fellows enjoy tailored onboarding meetings and consultations with Mandel Center staff, personal guidance through the Emerging Scholars Publications Program , and regular scholarly presentations and lectures by Mandel Center staff and fellows. 

Fellowship Duration and Stipend

Fellows receive a monthly stipend of $5,000, which may be subject to taxes, as well as a one-time travel stipend to support roundtrip, economy transportation to Washington, DC from their home institution. Individual awards are for two, four, or eight consecutive months of residency. A minimum of two consecutive months is required; no exceptions are allowed. Fellows may not hold a Mandel Center fellowship concurrently with other funded fellowships. The Mandel Center provides visa assistance to fellows and their dependents, if necessary, but there is no further financial allowance for accompanying family members. Fellows are responsible for securing their own housing accommodations and health insurance. 

Application Materials and Guidelines

The Mandel Center's annual competition for fellowships for the 2025–2026 academic year will open on August 15, 2024. Applications must be received no later than 11:59 p.m. on November 15, 2024.

Awards are granted on a competitive basis. Project proposals should specify the resources available at the Museum to which a scholar needs access for their research. Applicants may attach an addendum listing these resources (in addition to the 1,000-word project proposal) or otherwise reference important resources in the body of their project proposal. Visit  Collections Search to explore the Museum's holdings.

Applicants who previously received a fellowship award from the Mandel Center may re-apply once seven years have passed since the end date of their previous residency.

Applications must be submitted in English via our online application  and consist of the following:

An online application form

A project proposal (in PDF format, not to exceed 1,000 words)

A curriculum vitae summary (in PDF format, not to exceed four single-spaced pages)

Please note that the Mandel Center does not require letters of recommendation.  

Applicants will be notified of the competition outcome by April 2025. 

Contact Information

Visiting Scholar Programs Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW Washington, DC 20024-2126 [email protected]

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The Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies is a leading generator of new knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust.

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Holocaust, genocide and crimes against humanity

A well-informed understanding of the Holocaust can help in comprehending and addressing other genocides, mass atrocities, and human rights violations. Learn about how the IHRA uses comparative scholarship, education, and commemoration to build a world without genocide.

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Useful resources on comparative approaches, project highlight: holocaust comparison, the ihra’s committee on the holocaust, genocide, and crimes against humanity, our eight focus areas.

The IHRA’s expert-led tools help educators, policymakers, and museum professionals compare the Holocaust to different atrocities.

IHRA Reflections on Terminology for Holocaust Comparison

This resource provides questions for reflection to help people adopt good practice when comparing the Holocaust and other mass atrocities.

History Never Repeats itself, but Sometimes it Rhymes: Comparing the Holocaust to Different Atrocities

This resource concisely explores how we might engage in comparative analyses between the Holocaust and other atrocities.

Refugee Policies from 1933 until today: Challenges and Responsibilities

This volume brings together experts a group of experts to reflect on the past with a view to constructively informing positive, ethically responsible, and rational policymaking today.

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This grant projects draws on the regional experiences of the Second World War and genocides in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand to counter Holocaust and genocide distortion.

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We are raising awareness of the genocide of the Roma to help combat antigypsyism/anti-Roma discrimination.

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How to Get Holocaust Education Right

“Educate them about the Holocaust.”

That’s the rallying cry for many of those who feel shocked by skyrocketing antisemitism and Islamophobia on college campuses and K-12 schools. Learning about the Final Solution, the reasoning goes, steers young Americans against bigotry.

As the grandson of Auschwitz and Buchenwald survivors and an educator and documentary filmmaker who often tells Holocaust-related stories, I used to subscribe to this notion. But I’ve come to realize that despite being embedded in K-12 social studies, world history, and English literature curricula throughout the country, Holocaust education has failed to uproot hate and ignorance.  

Social media, where teens spend about five hours a day on average, teem with “ Holocaust denial and distortion ,” as well as antisemitic and Islamophobic conspiracy theories. The latest, for instance, falsely blames the Jews for Congress’ TikTok crackdown . No wonder K-12 schools’ incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia have skyrocketed , even before the Israel-Hamas War erupted and broke the hydrant of hatred wide open.

Read More: Who Needs Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2024?

In recent weeks, a flood of Israel-Hamas War-related hostility has forced an increasing number of university administrations around the country—such as Columbia, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Southern California—to summon the police in an attempt to quell student protests. Columbia moved all classes online on the eve of Passover, suspended some protesters , and threatened to expel those who’d occupied a campus building. USC revamped its commencement plans. And although most protests have played out as legitimate political activism reminiscent of the 1960s student movements, some have reportedly crossed the line into antisemitic and Islamophobic vitriol and violence.

On campuses and schoolyards, Jews and Muslims have suffered physical and psychological harm—from being jabbed in the face by a flagpole and requiring hospitalization to being called “terrorists” and needing mental-health counseling. The U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Office has been investigating several universities and school districts.

Holocaust education, in its foundational intention, was supposed to nip much of this in the bud. Taught at elementary, middle, and high schools throughout the country since the 1970s, it’s been positioned for wide impact. Twenty-six states require the instruction of the Holocaust. Most of the other states have funded commissions and councils to advance opportunities to educate students about the Nazis’ murder of 6 million Jews and millions of people with disabilities, homosexuals, and Romani people, among other groups.

Read More: The Holocaust Began Not With Concentration Camps, But With Hateful Rhetoric. That Part of the Story Cannot Be Forgotten

Historically, conservatives and liberals alike have embraced Holocaust education. The 2020 Never Again Education Act passed by a 393-5 vote at the U.S. House of Representatives and unanimously at the U.S. Senate. Further setting Holocaust education up for success, nonprofits ranging from USC’s Shoah Foundation in Los Angeles to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, have been supporting teachers for decades. Organization like Pittsburgh-based Classroom Without Borders have taken educators to the sites of Nazi death camps in Eastern Europe. On May 5, March of the Living is sending teachers and students, as well as the chancellors and presidents of SUNY (State University of New York), Towson, and other universities, to Poland. Stateside, 85 Holocaust museums and memorials have hosted countless school field trips.

Yet, Holocaust education has fallen far short even of its fundamental goal to raise awareness. Polls show young Americans lack “basic knowledge” about the Holocaust. About two-thirds know nothing or very little about Auschwitz and grossly underestimate the number of Jewish victims.

Alarming conversations I’ve had with students make it impossible for me to ignore these statistics. Following a university screening of a rough-cut of one of my documentaries, “ Cojot ,” two freshmen sheepishly told me they’d “never heard of this.” I assured them few have heard of French business consultant Michel Cojot’s quest to kill his father’s Nazi executioner.

Shaking their heads, the freshmen said they’d “never heard about any of this.”

They were talking about the Holocaust.

The encounter sent me on a mission of my own: help fulfill Holocaust education’s promise. I started by contemplating what knowledge, insights, and skills their students must obtain to put antisemitism and Islamophobia in the rearview mirror.

A couple of observations informed my thinking about the knowledge part of the equation: Traditional Holocaust education’s emphasis on disseminating historical facts has generated disappointing results and, in the long run, even A-students retain only a fraction of the information they absorb in school. They ofttimes memorize a lesson, regurgitate it on a test, then discard it from their brains.

So I focused on insights and skills, which tend to be stickier. An understanding of how democracies function and malfunction can stay with children and adolescents for life, sharpening their worldview and lending them a moral compass. Critical thinking, fact-finding, and active listening can boost empathy and productive civic discourse, enabling students to better navigate the present, past, and future.

In building this approach, I combined old methods in a new way. For a pedagogical anchor, I turned to practitioner inquiry, also called action research. This well-regarded yet underutilized professional development (PD) mechanism helps K-12 teachers examine and improve their practice. I hypothesized that although it was rarely if ever used in such a way, practitioner inquiry would upgrade Holocaust education when fitted with four lenses: contextual responsiveness, which enables educators to make their lessons relevant to the here and now; trauma-informed, which steers them away from age-inappropriate material and assists them in identifying and coping with trauma in their classrooms and schools; apolitical educational equity, which values every child and adolescent; and asset-based, which directs teachers’ attention to their students and communities’ strengths. 

To test this properly, I founded the nonpartisan, pedagogically orientated Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Education Initiative at Penn State . It provides PD programs in five states and counting to K-12 educators, many of whom know what but not how to effectively teach difficult topics.

The first rule of the initiative—to borrow a phrase from David Fincher’s “Fight Club”—is you do not have to talk about the Holocaust. Research my colleagues and I have conducted indicates the effective instruction of any difficult topic, be it slavery or evolution or gender, can get at the Holocaust’s underlying causes.

Participants in the initiative’s programs, who represent various roles, disciplines, and grade levels, choose a difficult topic from their curriculum or community. They learn to teach it confidently by conjuring up compelling questions, finding credible sources, collecting and analyzing data, examining the findings with experts and colleagues, drawing up an implementation plan, and applying it in their classrooms and schools. Thus, they meet their students where they are in authentic ways.

Our participants, who include nearly as many music and biology as social studies and English teachers, empower their students to come up with their own guiding questions and seek the truth and its implications for themselves. To teach in this unconventional manner, educators must shift from acting as sages on the stage to setting the stage for their students’ experiential learning.

This mindset change typically requires a mind-twisting effort. Why would teachers—already overburdened meeting state, district, and parental expectations—add this to their trays? Their motivations range from resetting the tone in their classroom to removing the perception of indoctrination to redefining student success. A longtime elementary school teacher, for instance, aimed to make her Civil War lessons more thought-provoking. “I was interested in ways to help my students think for themselves,” she told me. And a mid-career middle-school teacher sought to instill empathy in her seventh-graders. Referencing Jim Crow and Nazi propaganda, she challenged her students to investigate her thesis that “if you spend enough time talking negatively about people, you start to believe it.”

She tasked her students with logging “everything they said and heard in one day.” The hands-on assignment opened the seventh-graders’ eyes and, eventually, hearts. They reported hearing numerous hurtful judgements and “conversations about fighting,” the middle-school teacher said. “The data collected were overwhelmingly negative.” In the following weeks, the students “wanted to talk about it more” and grew to “understand why they do what they do and reassess what they say about each other.”

Much of K-12 looks far into the future. Ace biology or math now and become a doctor or coder later. Difficult topics inquiry offers students immediately useful takeaways. The empathy and active-listening skills they develop can enrich their inner and social lives. The two-way respect they forge with peers and adults can bolster their communications and self-esteem.

To give students a brighter outlook, individually and collectively, and fortify our democracy, we must reinvent how we teach difficult topics. We must trust students to chart a constructive course for themselves and society. This will forge a sense of control that can propel students on journeys of discovery, during which they learn to conduct primary research, triangulate the information they gather, seek multiple perspectives, and dialogue and debate with classmates. Ultimately, too, it would prompt our next generation to wonder why any student ever chose echo-chamber scorn over face-to-face, heated-yet-respectful civic discourse.

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Holocaust Remembrance Day: A Time for Reflection and Learning

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First designated by the United Nations in 2005, International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates the January 27 anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945. On this day, we remember the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and the Jewish resistance that accompanied and followed these events. We sit with the pain, suffering, and multigenerational trauma sustained by the six million victims and their families. We look both backwards and forwards, linking memory of the past with a call to conscience in the present. 

We mourn the loss of parents, children, doctors, educators, artists, thinkers, dreamers, troublemakers, and the manifold manifestations of humanity expressed in Jewish people. We remember people whose lives, though foreshortened, deeply touched those close to them and whose loss is unspeakably difficult to bear. When we sit with the sheer scale of this collective loss, we are also confronted with the familial networks forever disrupted, the ancestral wisdom not passed, and the ingenuity, beauty, and brilliance stolen from humanity. And as we contemplate these profound losses, the reality of ongoing antisemitic hatred and threats of violence only multiply our grief.

Though it has been more than 75 years since the liberation of the last concentration camp at Stutthof, antisemitism remains pervasive. We continue to witness a  steady stream of antisemitic rhetoric and acts of violence  targeting Jewish people in every corner of global society, many of them in and around schools, renewing deep concern about the increasing rate at which these harmful ideas are permeating the national consciousness. Additional disturbing trends are apparent in research published by the  Pew Research Center  which revealed that most American adults have no idea how many Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, nor how Adolf Hitler came to power. Equally disturbing figures were released by the  Claims Conference , including the finding that 45% of Americans cannot name one of the 40,000 ghettos or concentration camps that existed during the Holocaust. What’s more, they found that 49% of U.S. millennials and generation Z have seen Holocaust denial or distortion content online. Perhaps most alarmingly, 20% of U.S. millennials and generation Z surveyed in New York believe that Jews caused the Holocaust. 

The factors driving ignorance of the Holocaust are many but essential to redressing this problem is recommitting to Holocaust education.  The Echoes and Reflections U.S. College Survey  revealed that students who have received Holocaust education report greater knowledge of the Holocaust, as well as a greater willingness to challenge intolerant behavior in their midst. The findings also revealed that exposure to survivor testimony had a decisive impact on deepening students’ sense of social responsibility and civic efficacy.

We often discuss the transformative impact of survivor testimony and resilience in the field of Holocaust education, but on Holocaust Remembrance Day, we focus our remembrance on this: the precious survivors constitute the small minority of people who narrowly escaped death in a field of incalculable violence, and whose sufferings and personal losses have been unspeakably profound.

Use our seminal case study to bring the history of profound loss and the core moral choices of its actors to life in the classroom.

You might also be interested in…, echoes of the holocaust: eugenics and disability in the time of the holocaust, the art of listening – video testimony and the study of history, what's wrong with jojo rabbit, using survivor testimony in the classroom, in partnership with generation 2 generation, fragility of freedom: discussing holocaust memorial day 2024 in the classroom, confronting hate: when anti-zionism and antisemitism overlap, confronting hate: the perpetuation of hate on social media, intersecting histories: wartime north africa and the holocaust, combating erasive hate: jewish identity in the face of antisemitism, hearing from our youth: experiences with hate and its impact on jewish identity, harnessing the power of literature to combat antisemitism, building bridges in the fight against hate.

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Hannah Zweig Wins Prize in Holocaust Remembrance Essay Contest

This schreiber student aims to reduce prejudice..

Adina Genn , Patch Staff

Hannah Zweig, a sophomore, is one of 10 first-place winners in the national Holland & Knight Holocaust Remembrance essay contest.

Her essay, “Telling The Story” reveals the tale of her grandfather, Kurt Rosendahl, a Holocaust survivor, who lived through the horrors of the Nazis and Aushwitz concentration camp. During this period, Rosendahl lost his father and a dear friend, whose last words to him were  “If you survive, tell the world.”

Now Zwieg is telling the world  the story of the 11 million who perished at the hands of the Nazis. “My generation will be the last to be able to say that we spoke to survivors,” she wrote in her award-winning essay. As a writer, she aims to keep telling stories of those who have been discriminated against to help “reduce prejudice and intolerance.”

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Zweig will be receiving up to $10,000 in scholarship funds. She will travel to South Florida for one week where she will meet Holocaust survivors, visit Holocaust memorials and museums and attend the awards ceremony on June 30 in Miami, Florida.

Since the project began in 1995, students have received more than $1 million in scholarships and prizes. The Holocaust Remembrance Project is the only national essay contest for high school students designed to encourage and promote the study of the Holocaust.

Zweig learned about the project   through a social science research program. Active in “The Schreiber Times,” the school newspaper, she hopes one day to become editor-in-chief.  Her poetry has been read at Yom Hashoah services in both New York City and Florida.

Zweig hopes to continue to “tell the story” both through writing and lectures at religious centers and schools. She is also involved in interfaith teen events to help erase prejudice.

Writing, she says, will always play an important role in her life.

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The Holocaust: Students reflect in award-winning essays, projects

In 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.” 

Montgomery Blair High School's Online Student Newspaper — Saturday, August 24, 2024

Holocaust 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 .

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» Annual Holocaust Art & Writing Contest

View winning entries from the 25th annual holocaust art & writing contest and all previous years on our previous contests page., 26th annual holocaust art & writing contest, what do you bring when you don't know where you're going.

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 23-27, 2025, to visit the Museum of Tolerance 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.

Inspiration

The Nazi rise to power in 1933 brought changes to every facet of German society. While some initially benefited, others, especially Jews and Roma, immediately experienced restrictions as they were moved to the fringes of society and subsequently forced from society altogether. These changes accelerated and expanded as German forces annexed or occupied other countries where they implemented their racist and antisemitic ideology.

As persecution increased, those targeted faced the difficult decision of whether to stay or leave—although many people lacked either the necessary financial resources or a country that would accept them.  Departure often meant leaving behind much that mattered—family, friends, career, school, home, business. Some who fled discovered that putting down roots in another European country was not necessarily a guarantee of safety.

Otto Frank and his family left Germany for the Netherlands soon after Hitler became Germany’s political leader, never imagining that only a few years later Germany would be at war and the Netherlands would be occupied. As the threat of an attack drew closer, Otto did what he could. He created a secret hiding place in his business and moved his wife and daughters into the annex in July 1942. To avoid suspicion, the family could bring little with them, but knowing how much it meant to her, Otto allowed Anne to bring her treasured album filled with photos and postcards. Gluing magazine photos of her favorite Hollywood stars on the wall made the room she shared feel more like her own, as she wrote, it was “much more cheerful.” After the Franks’ secret hiding place was discovered, their next move was a much more sudden and traumatic one. This time the photos, along with Anne’s beloved diary, her most prized possession, had to be left behind.

The Holocaust brought unpredictable and sudden transitions. On a moment’s notice or less, one could be ordered to depart for an unknown location—ghetto, camp or into hiding. Sometimes one had only a few minutes to decide what to include in the one small suitcase one was allowed to bring. Should a mother pack a cooking pot in the hope that wherever she ended up she could still cook for her family or instead, should she pack an extra blanket for her child?

Arrival at a camp like Auschwitz meant that one was stripped of all a person had with them, including their clothes. After that, one could only carry what was intangible, something within oneself. Separated from his mother in the Plaszow concentration camp, young Leon Leyson treasured the memory of the time his mother had made him a special breakfast “for being such a good boy.” Remembering a parent’s words of praise or the promise, “you will survive,” became a lifeline of hope that one would someday be reunited with those one loved.

Sometimes what a person chose to carry sustained more than oneself. In his memoir Night , Elie Wiesel tells the story of Juliek, his companion on the death march from Auschwitz to Buchenwald, who somehow managed to bring his violin with him. Late at night, surrounded by starving and freezing men close to death, Juliek miraculously found the strength to play a movement from a Beethoven concerto, a haunting testimony to beauty in the midst of overwhelming inhumanity.

In December 1942, artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeis was ordered to the ghetto concentration camp of Terezin. Instead of bringing clothes or personal items, Friedl instead brought paints and brushes so she could teach drawing and painting to the camp’s children. Thanks to what she chose to carry, over the next two years, the children created nearly 5,000 drawings which Friedl packed into two suitcases and hid before she and the children were deported to their deaths in Auschwitz.

Every person caught in the net of the Holocaust carried with them something of personal value whether it was carried in one’s hand or one’s heart. What each person chose tells us something about them as individuals, about what mattered to them, and perhaps about what they thought might be a source of strength for survival. Their choices also challenge us to think about who we are and about what matters to us.

• Chapman University’s Holocaust Art & Writing Contest website, featuring video testimonies from the collection of the USC Shoah Foundation — The Institute for Visual History and Education at Chapman.edu/contest-testimonies
• South Carolina Council on the Holocaust website at scholocaustcouncil.org/survivor.php
• The 1939 Society website at the1939society.org
• USC Shoah Foundation - The Institute for Visual History and Education’s YouTube channel at Youtube.com/uscshoahfoundation (“Full-Length Testimonies” playlists only )
• USC Shoah Foundation's iWitness site at iwitness.usc.edu

* 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 testimony, think about the stages of that person’s journey through the Holocaust, the challenges they faced, and the decisions they made about what they could carry with them at each transition. Write down a specific word, phrase, or sentence from the testimony that references something specific that person “carried.” Why did whatever they chose matter so much to them? What insight does their choice give you about that individual? 

Please note the timestamp from the video testimony where the specific word, phrase, or sentence occurs.

3. As the person now entrusted with this individual’s experience, through your creativity in art, poetry, prose, or film, explore this word, phrase, or sentence as central to the survivor’s story, as a source of insight about that person and what mattered to them, Include in your response your reflection about what you will carry with you from this survivor’s story and why it matters to you.

We encourage teachers to consult the Educator Guide for rubrics, specific criteria and other information.

General Criteria

• Regardless of delivery method (digital or hard copy), all entrants must complete the online submission form
• Entries must reflect genuine engagement with the survivor's testimony in its historical context and constitute a thoughtful and creative response.
• USC Foundation's iWitness site at iwitness.usc.edu
• Entries must include a time stamp (timecode) from the video testimony. This is the moment in the testimony that the student chooses that references the theme of the contest prompt.
• Entries that do not follow the criteria will be disqualified.

Art Criteria

• Title of the work
• Name of survivor to whose testimony this work is a response
• Statement of how the work addresses the prompt
• Statement must not include student or school name and must not exceed 100 words.
• Acknowledgement of sources – to protect copyright holders, proper citation of all sources is required. Permission for sources that are not public domain must be obtained in writing from copyright holder and submitted with entry.
• Please do not staple, tape, or otherwise attach the artist statement to the artwork
• Submissions must be two-dimensional only, on medium no thicker than ¾”, and must not exceed 12” x 18.”
• Artwork must not be matted or framed.
• Fixative spray must be applied to charcoal, pencil, pastel, and chalk art.
• Submissions can include photography and computer-generated images.
• Artists can use charcoal, pencil, pastel, chalk, watercolors, acrylics, or oils.
• Renderings of another’s work will be disqualified.
• Please note that AI-generated works are not permitted. All images, whether created by hand or digitally, must be the original creation of the student artist.

Film Criteria

• Content viewing time (without credits) may be no longer than three (3) minutes.
• File size must not exceed 600 MB.
• Films are to be submitted without credits for blind judging. A completed film with credits should be prepared in the event the film is selected for screening.
• Films may be submitted using WeTransfer.com, Google Drive, or other free file transfer websites.
• To ensure compatibility with MAC and PC, please use either QuickTime or MPEG format.

Poetry Criteria

• Entries must be titled.
• Entries must be typed.
• Entries must not include graphics, drawings, or other images. It must be clear that the entry is a poem and not artwork.
• Entries must be created by students. AI-generated works are not permitted.
• Entries must not include reference to student or school name.
• Students should include the name of the survivor about whom the entry is written. If the name doesn’t appear in the work, it should appear under the title.
• Entries may be no more than 30 lines .

Prose Criteria

• Entries may be no more than 500 words .
• Holocaust Art & Writing Contest
• Previous Art & Writing Contests

The Holocaust Art & Writing Contest

Sponsored by.

Chapman University The 1939 Society The Irving and Nancy Chase Endowment for Holocaust Education The Samueli Foundation Yossie and Dana Hollander

With support from

USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education The Jerry and Sally Schwartz Endowment for Holocaust Education The Liner Family Foundation

In partnership with

Catholic 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 with

Museum of Tolerance United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, Chapman University

International Partners

Forum for Dialogue, Poland Johannesburg Holocaust and Genocide Centre, South Africa Toronto Holocaust Museum, Canada

• Register School
• List of Registered Schools (2024)

Important Dates

Educator Workshops DATES COMING SOON! Entry Postmark Date: February 3, 2025

Digital Submission due date: February 5, 2025

Awards Ceremony March 14, 2025

24-25 Contest

Download coming soon for the 24-25 contest brochure with inspiration, prompt and submission information.

Download coming soon for the 24-25 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

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