Submissions Double for Kleinman Holocaust Education Center Annual Student Visual Arts and Literacy Contest, Winners Selected

– 866 Students in Grades 7 to 12 from 68 schools nationwide responded to firsthand accounts of the Holocaust –

                                                 – Bnos Yisroel of Baltimore Student has Winning Entry –

Brooklyn, NY - May 3, 2016 - The Kleinman Holocaust Education Center (KHEC) has announced the winners of the Visual Arts and Literary Contest, with this year's contest drawing more than twice as many submissions from when it was launched last year. The winning submissions came from schools in California, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island.

For the contest, students in grades 7 to 12 were given excerpts from Holocaust diaries that chronicle firsthand accounts of faith, strength, and courage. Students were asked to produce creative writing or artwork that reflected their emotional interpretation of what they read. KHEC designed the contest to preserve the memory of the diarists and inspire readers to develop inner strength to meet life's challenges.

 "The overwhelming response we had to this year's contest is yet another indication of the tremendous need that exists for the resources KHEC makes available," said Mr. Elly Kleinman, Founder and President of the Kleinman Holocaust Education Center. "Our mission is to provide all people with a better and deeper understanding of the perspectives and experiences of observant Jews during the Holocaust, and this contest gives students invaluable artifacts from that period of time to do just that."

 The winners for 7th and 8th grade are: first place, Cheli Schochet, Providence Hebrew Day School; second place Pessy Perlstein, Bais Yaakov of Boro Park; and third place, Albert Cohen, Yeshiva Shaare Torah Boys Elementary School. 

The winners for 9th and 10th grade are: first place, Michal Herman, Bruriah High School for Girls; second place, Yehudis Berkowitz, Bnos Yisroel of Baltimore; and third place, Eduardo Garza, St. Augustine High School.

The winners for 11th and 12th grade are: first place, Lillian Liebman, Torah High School of San Diego; second place, Tzivie Lefkowitz, Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley; and third place, Chaim Weinman, Yeshivas Novominsk. 

The contest's grand prize for each grade level is $250. Second place winners receive $100, and third place winners receive $50.

One hundred and fourteen teachers from schools across the country chose to incorporate the contest into their curricula. Mrs. Libby Spero, Assistant Principal in the High School at Bnos Yisroel of Baltimore, found out about the contest through a mailer sent by the KHEC. She spoke about it with the school’s 9th grade English teacher, Dr. S. Cotter, who determined that it would fit well with the curriculum.

Mrs. Spero shared her thoughts on the students’ experience: “Aside from just sharpening their writing skills, I think it was definitely a very moving experience just reading the diaries and getting a little bit in touch with what people dealt with, what people went through, and how different their lives were compared to ours. The diaries helped students see Emunah (faith) in its purest form, that Hashem (G-d) does not abandon us - that it is our faith that sustains us in trying times."

Yehudis Berkowitz, a 9th grade student at Bnos Yisroel of Baltimore, won second place in the 9th and 10th grade division. She wrote a letter in response to Dr. Hillel Seidman’s Warsaw Ghetto diary.

This year's contest included excerpts from three different Holocaust diaries, and the writings students read were grade-level specific. After students reflected upon the text, they could choose to write a letter to the diarist sharing their connections, observations, and questions; or create a promotional poster about the diary excerpt.

The contest is part of educational programming at the KHEC, a New York-based museum and education center. Programming includes school visits and summer camps, and teachers are provided with a wealth of educational materials to incorporate KHEC's resources into their curricula. 

"The hands-on experience students get from engaging in this kind of activity is invaluable, as it enriches their education and understanding of people who lived during the Holocaust," said Mrs. Julie Golding, Director of Education for KHEC. "And we've had a steep rise in the number of teachers who have scheduled class visits to KHEC so their students can see the diaries in person."

Students in grades 7 and 8 read the diary of Rywka Lipszyc (pronounced Rivka Lipschitz), who was a 14-year old Jewish girl, orphaned and living in the Lodz ghetto in Poland. The diary spans from October 1943 to April 1944. Rywka was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in August 1944, and a Red Army doctor reportedly discovered pages from the diary outside the Auschwitz crematorium during liberation in 1945. The diary remained in the doctor's possession for more than a half-century, until after her death, when her granddaughter brought it to be published in San Francisco.

Students in grades 9 and 10 read the diary of Hillel Seidman, an archivist of the Warsaw kehilla (community), who was a researcher and author. His diary spans from July 1942 to April 1943, and provides a firsthand account of the Warsaw Ghetto's last days. The diary was seized by the Gestapo, then rescued and hidden in a cellar where it was finally unearthed at the end of the war. 

Students in grades 11 and 12 read the diary of Chaim Yitzchok Wolgelernter, a Torah scholar, businessman, and young father of two children. It was written while he was in hiding from 1942 to 1944, and crafted as a memoir, with chapter titles and a table of contents. The author was killed just months before liberation, and the diary remained untouched in a drawer, unpublished until more than seventy years later.  

The KHEC museum will be opening its primary permanent location at 1561 50th Street, Brooklyn, New York, in 2017. The KHEC is the premier Holocaust institution in the world dedicated to telling the Orthodox Jewish story of the Holocaust. It has the largest collection of artifacts and documents from the observant world, which will be made available for scholarly research and public access.

 "We have already acquired a voluminous amount of artifacts and documents, and are continually working to build our collection so more initiatives such as this student contest can be made possible," said Rabbi Sholom Friedmann, Director of the Kleinman Holocaust Education Center.

The contest is sponsored by Meridian Capital Group, LLC, and additional sponsors include The Jewish Press, Israel Bookshop Publications, and The ArtScroll Library. 

About the Kleinman Holocaust Education Center

The Kleinman Holocaust Education Center (KHEC) has its primary facility in Brooklyn, New York, with future annexes in Lakewood, New Jersey, and Jerusalem, as well as other exhibitions that are currently under development in a number of European countries. The KHEC is a museum dedicated to documenting the micro-histories of observant Jewish victims, and the role of faith, within the broader context of the annihilation of European Jewry. The KHEC fulfills its mission in service to the general public and students, through extensive educational programs, the permanent exhibition and archival collections.