Holocaust Remembrance Student Writing/Art Contest

Submission deadline: Monday, October 19, 2020
Exhibition & Awards Night: Tuesday, November 10, 2020
5:00-7:00pm at IU Northwest's Moraine Student Center
The Jewish Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Northwest Indiana invites students in grades 7-12 to enter its 2020 Holocaust Remembrance Student Writing/Art Contest. The contest theme is “Why We Must Remember: Honoring the 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz.”  As taught by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, this theme is a reminder that it is not only important to curse the darkness of the past, but also to illuminate the future and to acknowledge the humanity in all people so that the world can be left in a better place for posterity.

Eligibility:
All students in grades 7-12 (during the 2020-2021 school year) who are residents of Lake, Porter, or LaPorte Counties, Indiana.
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Requirements:
  • Writing: Narrative composition and/or poetry of no more than 1,500 words, double-spaced.
  • Art: Should demonstrate originality and creative representation of the theme, using paint, crayon, pencil, charcoal, or other similar media on 8.5 x 11 white paper.
All entries must include a title page or label containing the following information:
  • Student's name
  • Grade
  • Home address
  • Telephone number
  • School name, address, and telephone number
  • Teacher's name

Submission Deadline: Monday, October 19, 2020

How to Submit:
  • All submissions must be emailed to [email protected]. 
  • Writing submissions should be sent as electronic attachments; acceptable file formats include DOC (Microsoft Word), RTF, or PDF. 
  • Art submissions may be sent electronically as JPEG, TIFF or PDF files. Original works may also be mailed or hand-delivered to the Jewish Federation of Northwest Indiana, 585 Progress Ave., Munster, IN 46321. Please include a USPS tracking number with your submission email.

Gift Card Awards in various age categories of the two context components
First ($75)
Second ($50)
Third ($25)
Winners will receive awards at an Exhibition & Awards Night on Tuesday, November 10, 2020, 5:00-7:00pm at IU Northwest's Moraine Student Center. 
All winners plus additional honorable mention recipients will also receive Holocaust-themed books
For more information, call the Jewish Federation at (219) 301-0960.

About The Liberation of Auschwitz


​In 1945, as American, British, and Soviet soldiers moved across Europe in a series of offensives on Germany, they encountered and liberated concentration camp prisoners. Advancing from the east, Soviet forces came upon Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland on Jan. 27 where they witnessed unimaginable horrors. In liberating Auschwitz and other Nazi camps, the allies exposed to the world the full breadth of Nazi atrocities, lending urgency to the demands for justice.

Concerned that the world would not believe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted every American to see what was discovered. Eisenhower not only understood the war was a struggle for the freedom of peoples and the ideals on which civilization was based, but also that the horror was so extreme that it might not be believed. Realizing that a failure to believe would be a danger for the future of mankind, he ordered other soldiers to visit the camps and encouraged journalists and Members of Congress to bear witness as well.

Time and distance have not lessened the need to remember and educate future generations how hatred and racism can lead to disastrous effects. The history of the Holocaust raises difficult questions about human behavior and the context within which individual decisions are made. It is crucial not to simplify this history, but to instead seek to convey its many nuances. For example, the word resistance often refers to acts of armed revolt, but during the Holocaust, there were thousands of acts of resistance worth remembering and emulating. These included willful disobedience, the continuation of the practice of religious and cultural traditions in defiance of the rules, the smuggling of messages, food, and weapons, and even the creation of art, music, and poetry inside the camps and ghettos. For many, simply maintaining the will to live in the face of abject brutality was an act of spiritual resistance.

​The Holocaust was not inevitable. Just because it was documented in the past does not mean it should not continue to be remembered and the victims honored today in the hope that such an atrocity for will not occur again.