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(Posted to this site on 01/16/2006)

The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater has graciously provided background and research.

ATTENTION TEACHERS!

Earn Books For Your Classroom Simply By Submitting Your Students' Work In The Holocaust Writing Competition

All teachers who submit at least 22 original student entries may choose one title from the following lists. Simply fill in the information below and return this page with your students' entries. If you teach smaller classes, please call us regarding the number of entries needed to qualify for this program. A substantially smaller entry will not be counted toward the minimum requirement.

All entries must meet competition guidelines. We will deliver or mail the books to you at your school. If there is another book related to teaching tolerance that is not on the list, or other educational materials you would like, please notify us, and we will consider your request. Please note that the books are presented to the teachers for the school's use.
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Circle one title from the following:

Middle School Books High School Books	High School Books
1. Friedrich, Hans Peter Richter	12. Clara's Story , Clara Isaacman
2. Jacob's Rescue, Malka Drucker	13. The Devil's Arithmetic, Jane Yolen
3. Tunes for Bears To Dance To, Robert Cormier	1. Mila 18, Leon Uris
4. Night, Elie Wiesel	2. Sophie's Choice, William Styron
5. Upon The Head Of The Goat, Aranka Siegel	3. Survival in Auschwitz, Primo Levi
6. Kinder Transport, Olga Levy Drucker	4. Gentle Hands, Ruth Kerr
7. The Man From The Other Side, Uri Orlev	5. A Scrap of Time, Ida Fink
8. A Pocket Full of Seeds, Marilyn Sachs	6. Never To Forget, Milton Meltzer
9. The Cage, Ruth Minsky Sender	7. Rescue, Milton Meltzer
10. A Place To Hide: True Stories Of Holocaust Rescues, Jane Pettit	8. The Hidden Children, Howard Greenfield
11. The Shawl, Cynthia Ozick	9. Number The Stars, Jane Lowry
	10 Raoul Wallenberg: The Man Who Stopped Death, Sharon Linnea

Please print all information clearly:
Full Name of Teacher______________________________
Full Name of School_______________________________
Complete School Address________________________________________________________________
School Telephone___________________ Class Size ______ Subject Teaching_________________

This cover sheet should accompany your students' entries.
For questions, please contact Holocaust Writing Competition Committee:
Co-Chairs Helaine Shinske - 865-7288 or Sandy Katz - 868-7704
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Are you preparing your students for the SOL tests?

This competition can assist you in preparing your students for the SOL by addressing the following SOL skills for both Social Studies and Language Arts/English.

• Identify, analyze, and interpret primary source documents, records, and data, including artifacts, diaries, letters, photographs, journals, newspapers, historical accounts, and art to increase the understanding of events and life in the United States
• Evaluate the authenticity, authority, and credibility of sources
• Formulate historical questions and defend findings based on inquiry and interpretation
• Develop perspectives of time and place, including the construction of maps and various time lines of events, period, and personalities in American history
• Communicate findings (orally and) in analytical essays and/or comprehensive papers
• Develop skills in (discussion, debate, and) persuasive writing with respect to enduring issues and determine how divergent viewpoints have been addressed and reconciled
• Apply geographic skills and reference sources to understand how relationships between humans and their environment have changed over time
• Interpret the significance of excerpts from famous speeches and other documents

Language Arts/English SOL Skills

• Read and understand information from varied sources
• Apply knowledge of resources in preparing written (and oral) presentations
• Credit the sources of both quoted and paraphrased ideas
• Use writing to interpret, analyze, and evaluate ideas
• Develop narrative, literary, expository, and technical writings to inform, explain, analyze, or entertain
• Collect, evaluate, and organize information

The Holocaust Writing Competition For Students

 The competition is open to students from:
Gloucester , Hampton , Newport News , Poquoson, Williamsburg , and York County.

One of the primary goals of this writing competition is to encourage young people to apply the lessons of history to the moral decisions they make today. Through studying the Holocaust, students explore the issues of moral courage as well as the dangers of prejudice, peer pressure, unthinking obedience to authority, and indifference. This competition provides students an opportunity to think and express themselves creatively about what they have learned.

CATEGORIES: ESSAY AND CREATIVE WRITING
Prizes Will Be Awarded In Each Category As Follows:

If you need assistance in locating resources, would like additional copies of the guidelines, or have any questions about this competition, please contact:

Rochelle Portnoy, Executive Director, UJCVP, 930-1422

Please submit entries by 4:30 pm, Tuesday, March 14, 2006 to

The United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula
Holocaust Writing Competition
2700 Spring Road
Newport News , Virginia 23606

Entries will not be returned.

Winning entries may be published, exhibited, or reproduced on our website and in publications of the UJCVP. If you do not want your work published, exhibited, or reproduced, you must notify us in writing at the time you submit your entry.

WRITING COMPETITION GUIDELINES
MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL DIVISIONS

1. Select one of the prompts provided and write an essay or a piece of creative writing following the instructions for each.

2. All entries must be typed and doubled-spaced.

3. Entries may be up to three pages in length.

4. Submit two complete copies of your entry.

5. Include a cover page^* with the following information on both copies:

a) The division you are entering, Middle School or High School, and the category you are entering, Essay or Creative Writing.

b) Your full name, home telephone number, and address including zip code.

c) Grade, teacher's full name, and school

6. Cite all sources quoted.

7. One entry per student.

^*To ensure impartial judging, do not put your name or other identifying information on any page other than the cover page. Staple all pages together in the upper left hand corner with the cover page first.

Judging will be based on the following criteria:
1. Work is original, cohesive, and insightful.
2. There is proper use of language including grammar and spelling.
3. Instructions and guidelines are followed.

Failure to comply with these instructions may result in disqualification.

ALL COMPETITION ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY 4:30 PM, TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 2006

A Holocaust Writing Competition for Students of the Virginia Peninsula

It's your first helicopter ride! You're soaring over the rustic Smoky Mountains . Your pilot enjoys zooming you in for close-ups of rivers and valleys and then climbing back up high again. He announces he'll be taking you in for a surprise landing at Whitwell Middle School in rural Whitwell , Tennessee . As he hovers high above this real school, he asks you, "What do you see?" You gaze down upon hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of teenagers just like you. They are changing classes, talking, and laughing just like you do. Only, at this school you see no Asian students. You see no Hispanic students. You see maybe two or three African American students.

Then, you see something you can't quite figure out. You ask the pilot to go closer. It looks like a very old railroad car right in the schoolyard! You see students leading people in and out of this railroad car. The pilot brings you in closer yet, and you notice that the people leaving the railroad car are wiping tears away from their eyes. One woman has collapsed in grief on the stairs leaving the car. You wonder, "What could be so emotional about the inside of a railroad car?"

Your pilot lands. You are greeted by a couple of students who take you on a tour of the most amazing thing you have ever seen on school grounds. It is a real World War II boxcar, and it is filled with 11 million paper clips!

"But why?" you ask.

You learn that the students of Whitwell Middle School live in an almost exclusively white, Christian community. In 1998, the school began a project to try to understand how many Jews were killed during the Holocaust in World War II. The students could not begin to comprehend the size of the loss of 6,000,000 Jewish lives and an additional 5,000,000 lives of other victims of the Nazi era. All were murdered because of hatred and intolerance.

These teenagers - teenagers just like you - began writing letters, asking people to send them paper clips. Each paper clip would represent the murder of one victim - someone's parent, child, grandparent, aunt, or uncle. The students had done "some research, and discovered that citizens of Norway , where paper clips were invented, wore them on their lapels as a sign of patriotism and resistance against Nazi tyranny during World War II." Whitwell Middle School collected and counted paper clips from all over the world that came in more than 25,000 pieces of mail. You learn another part of this true story: The school was also given a real World War II boxcar as a permanent tribute to the work of these amazing kids. Today, students at Whitwell Middle give tours to the public of the Children's Holocaust Memorial railcar on their school grounds.

"The Nazis used this car, number 011-993, and others like it to transport Jews and other victims of the Holocaust to concentration camps. Well over one hundred people at a time would be carried in these 'transport cars.' They would be packed in so tightly that there was no room to sit down..."(They had no food, no water, and the only toilet was a very small, wooden bucket.) "They would suffer without relief for days at a time during the long, slow trips to the death camps." (http://www.paperclipsmovie.com/synopsis.php)

A.) You ARE this boxcar. Tell your story. What did you see during World War II as you carried thousands of people to the death camps? How did you feel? What would you say to the Nazis if you could speak? How does it feel to be part of the Whitwell Middle School Paper Clip project now? What do you hope has been learned by now about tolerance and acceptance? Choose a writing form that shows your inspiration, whether it is an essay, poem, drama, rap, diary, or journal.

B.) Imagine you are the grandchild of a Holocaust Survivor, a Jew who somehow escaped murder during WWII. Conduct an imaginary interview with your grandparent. What questions would you ask? What do you think the answers would be? In your interview, be sure to ask what we need to do in our own schools and towns today to avoid the horrors of the Holocaust from happening ever again. Present this interview in dialogue form.

C.)Contemporary works today show real teenagers, just like you, who are coming to terms with what happened during the Holocaust. Try to see the movie Paper Clips, or check out the amazing story about Hana's Suitcase by Karen Levine. This is a true account of Hana Brady, her brother George, and their parents whose lives were turned upside down by the Nazis. Using Hana's suitcase, a young Japanese teacher is encouraged by her students to show her determination to track down the outcome of Hana's life 70 years later. Or read the book The Freedom Writers Diary which, through individual journal entries, tells the story of "unteachable, at-risk" students in California who undertake a "life-changing, eye-opening, spirit-raising odyssey against intolerance..." because they can relate the Holocaust to their own lives. You may also wish to read Forging Freedom which tells the story of teenager Jaap Penratt, a Dutch boy who saved more than 400 people while he put his own life in danger. Two chapters from his story can be found at http://www.holocaust-trc.org/fofrdm.htm. Write an essay, poem, drama, rap, diary, or journal to explain your reaction to one or more of these modern projects by kids your own age. What will you do to raise the awareness of the need for tolerance and acceptance?

Bibliography

Holocaust Related Web Sites
www.bxcience.edu/orgs/holocaust
www.holocaust-trc.org/
www.facing.org/
www.holocaustcommission.org/
www.holocaust-history.org/
www.ushmm.org/
www.wiesenthal.com/
www.yad-vashem.org.il
www2.warnerbros.com/intothearmsofstrangers/
This is an extraordinary website to help you with your research: http://www.holocaust-trc.org

Holocaust Related Books

Prospective entrants should consult the catalog in their school library.

Key to abbreviations
Books suitable for: middle school students (MS); high school students (HS).
Books available at eight public libraries:

Gloucester Co.(G),
Hampton (H),
Newport News (NN),
Poquoson (P),
York Co.(Y),
Williamsburg Regional (W),
Christopher Newport University (CN),
College of William and Mary (WM).)

Poetry
Holocaust Poetry , compiled by Hilda Schiff, 1995. MS, HS [NN, P, W, Y]

History
Bachrach, Susan. Tell Them We Remember , 1994. MS [All eight libraries.]

Bauer, Yehudah. A History of the Holocaust , 1982. MS, HS [G, NN, W, CN, WM]

Byers, Ann. The Holocaust Overview , 1998. MS [G, Y, W]

Chaikin, Miriam. A Nightmare in History: The Holocaust 1933-1945 , 1987. MS [G, H, NN, P, Y, W]

Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe during the Second World War , 1985. MS, HS [H, NN, Y, CN, WM]

Landau, Ronnie. The Nazi Holocaust , 1994. MS, HS [H, NN, W, WM]

Meltzer, Milton. Never to Forget: The Jews of the Holocaust , 1976. MS, HS [All eight libraries.]

Rossel, Seymour. The Holocaust: The Fire That Raged , 1989. MS [NN, P, W]

Rescuers (General)
Block, Gay and Malka Drucker. Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage , 1992. HS [H, NN, WM]

Fogelman, Eva. Conscience and Courage: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, 1994. HS [H, NN, W, CN, WM]

Gottfried, Ted. Heroes of the Holocaust, 2001. MS [NN, W, Y]

Meltzer, Milton. Rescue: The Story of How Gentiles Saved Jews in the Holocaust, 1988. MS, HS [H, NN, Y, W]

Rittner, Carol and Sondra Myers, eds. The Courage to Care: Rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust, 1986. MS, HS [H, NN, CN, WM]. 

Bibliography

To Life: Stories of Courage and Survival: Told by Hampton Roads Holocaust Survivors, Liberators and Rescuers, 2002. MS, HS [Available in all public school libraries.]

Rescuers (Specific individuals or groups)
Goldberger, Leo, ed. The Rescue of the Danish Jews: Moral Courage under Stress, 1987. HS [CN] The
Danish people rescue their Jewish citizens from deportation to killing centers.

Hallie, Philip. Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon, 1979. HS [H, W, CN, WM] French rescuers of Jews under Nazi occupation.

Keneally, Thomas. Schindler's List, 1982. HS [All eight libraries.] The story of the German businessman, Oskar Schindler, told in the form of a true-to-life novel.

Levine, Ellen. Darkness over Denmark : Danish Resistance and the Rescue of the Jews, 2002. MS [G, H, NN, P, W]

Matas, Carol. Greater than Angels, 1998. MS [NN, P, W] Fiction. Anna, a teenaged Jewish refugee, tells how she and others were saved by the people of Le Chambon.

Nicholson, Michael. Raoul Wallenberg:The Swedish Diplomat Who Saved 100,000 Jews from the Holocaust before Mysteriously Disappearing, 1989. MS, HS [H, NN, W]

Opdyke, Irene Gut. In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescue, 1999. MS, HS [G, NN, P, W, Y, WM] The story of a Polish rescuer.

Smith, Danny. Lost Hero: Raoul Wallenberg's Quest to Save the Jews of Hungar, 2001. HS [Y, WM]

United Jewish Community of the Virginia Peninsula, Inc.
2700 Spring Road Newport News , VA 23606
(757) 930-1422 Fax: (757) 930-3762
Email: unitedjc@ujcvp.org website: http://www.ujcvp.org