Winners of Holocaust Writing/Art Contest in Local Newspapers

Bellevue girl honored in Holocaust writing, art contest
Bellevue Reporter
May 10, 2010

Caroline Nelson, a student from Ann Gilbert’s class at Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bellevue won Honorable Mention in the 7th and 8th grade art category in the 2010 Jacob Friedman Holocaust Writing and Art Contest.

Her art piece was one of 750 entries that dealt with the question: How would your life be different if people were more respectful and tolerant of each other’s differences? How does change begin with you?

The contest was sponsored by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center

Caroline's explained her art work as follows:
"All these girls helped me take this picture. It took plenty of planning, but we all got together to take the picture.

What if the world did that? If the whole world got together to help another country, I would think that, by rising as one, we’d fix that country’s problem.

I asked several girls what their main heritage was. I wrote the names of all the different [heritages] onto shirts.

I was amazed by how many different [ones] we had at our school. I was amazed how all of them were my friends. That’s how change starts with me."... Read full article

Inspired Cedar Heights Middle School students place in Jacob Friedman art and essay competition
Covington Reporter News
May 14, 2010

A pair of Cedar Heights Middle School students earned prizes in the Jacob Friedman Holocaust Writing and Art Contest held by the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center.

Both students, Laylan Tahir and Lucas Reider, are eighth graders in Sylvia O’Brien’s class at Cedar Heights.

“Students across the district, around the state and across the country study the Holocaust to learn about our world, past and present,” O’Brien explained via e-mail. “Many Kent students have spent several months studying the Holocaust and will attend three speaker symposiums. The Washington State Holocaust Research Center, located on Mercer Island, sponsors a contest each year to help further this study.”*

This year the focus was on Anne Frank, who often looked out at a chestnut tree she could see from her hiding place, and a sapling from that tree will be planted in Volunteer Park in Seattle.
Tahir won first place in the seventh and eighth grade writing category.

“Her essay compared her mother, who was a survivor of the Saddam Hussein regime and genocide of the Kurds, to Anne Frank,” O’Brien said.

The following is an excerpt from the entry:
Do you know the story behind my face? What do you see when you look at me? Do you see a typical teenage girl? Are you going to judge me without knowing me? I am a thirteen-year-old Kurdish girl; Anne Frank was a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl. They say there is no such thing as perfection. Although I believe that if people had more respect and tolerance for one another, that saying would definitely be proven wrong. The world would be better.

Reider won third place in the seventh and eighth grace art category. Inspired by Anne Frank’s view of the tree from her hiding place, he created a picture of the chestnut tree reaching through the earth spreading tolerance and change, respect and peace... Read full article

*The Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center is located in downtown Seattle.