Giving the Holocaust a Creative Voice

Korean exchange student Sang Eun Lee, who attends Cardinal Dougherty High School, proudly displays her prize-winning entry.

Photos by Joanna Lightner

The Moore College of Art in Philadelphia has a provocative exhibit on display in its galleries through June 16. Thirty works by teenage artists representing 21 public, private and parochial schools throughout the Greater Philadelphia area honor the memory of a young man who died before realizing his own creative potential.

The exhibitors are winners in the 35th annual Mordechai Anielewicz Creative Arts Competition, an exposition of art, music, film, dance and creative writing sponsored by the Memorial Committee for the Six Million Jewish Martyrs of Federation's Jewish Community Relations Council and the Auerbach Central Agency for Jewish Education. The competition honors the memory of Anielewicz, a Polish teenager who commanded the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, or Jewish Fighting Organization, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Anielewicz led the force of 750 fighters against the heavily armed and well-trained Germans and held them off for nearly a month before they were overtaken.

Chairperson Dr. Maureen Pelta, said that the competition gives students of all religious and ethnic backgrounds an opportunity to respond to the Holocaust and its related issues through creative expression. Winners receive U.S. Savings Bonds and the opportunity to display their work in professional gallery space at Moore, where Pelta serves as a professor of art history. She first became involved with the competition as a judge at the urging of her late father, Samuel, a Holocaust survivor who believed strongly in the importance of engaging young people in active education about the Shoah. After his death, the family established the Samuel Pelta Holocaust Education Endowment. Funds help support workshops and other continuing education programs for Holocaust educators and provide age-appropriate materials and resources for classrooms and school libraries.

Competition award winners should feel proud of their achievements. This year, a record 390 entries were received, representing 297 works of poetry and prose, six multi-media entries and 87 two and three dimensional works of art.

Barrack Academy student Aaron Elkin discusses his sculpture with Holocaust survivor Itka Zygmuntowicz.

Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy art teacher Laura Lynn Stern had many award-winning student entries in the competition, which is now entering its 35th year. Eighth-grader Mira Taichman placed first in the category of two dimensional art, while classmate Benjamin Ritzer took first prize in the three-dimensional category. Ritzer was excited to create a sculpture that "creates a balance between past and present," he said, explaining that "it is very important to understand the lessons of the Holocaust so that the mistakes are not repeated." Ritzer really enjoys learning about sculpting and other art forms in after-school activities at Barrack and at the Samuel S. Fleisher Art Memorial where he used to take classes.

Aaron Elkin, another Barrack eighth grader, placed second in the 3D art category for his sculpture of a gold hand rising up from the depths of despair. He was inspired by a story he read about Andrew Goodman, one of three "Freedom Summer" field-workers who were murdered during the civil rights movement for helping Mississippi blacks register and organize. "A picture in the book showed Goodman with his hand clenched, symbolizing that the struggle to live in peace and freedom is never ending." Elkin hopes that his sculpture will stimulate conversations about the Holocaust and the numerous other atrocities triggered by ethnic and racial hatred. "We must continue to talk about and act upon the ever-present threat of evil to humankind," he emphasized.

Madeline Reynolds, a senior at the Country Day School of the Sacred Heart in Bryn Mawr, studied the Holocaust as a unit in her advanced placement World Literature class. The class, which included a trip to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., where they were addressed by a Holocaust survivor, was charged with creating art based on their readings of such Holocaust-themed books as Night by Elie Weisel. Reynolds, who always enjoyed knitting, was inspired to create a quilt depicting several Holocaust symbols and incorporated the book cover as a design element. "I read about a woman who created quilts to tell stories about important events in her lifetime," said Reynolds, who hopes that this quilt may serve as "an enduring legacy for future generations to learn about a very dark period in human history." Reynolds will enter Villanova next fall. Although she has not declared a major, she believes that her experience in the creative arts competition might serve as a stepping stone to a future career in art.

Benjamin Ritzer, from Barrack Academy, won first prize in the three-dimensional category.

Sang Eun Lee, known as "Dawn" to her fellow 10th graders at Cardinal Dougherty High School in Philadelphia, is from Korea. She is a participant in Nacel: Open Door Policy, an international study program. Her favorite subjects are world history and art, and Lee viewed the contest as "an exciting way to combine both of my interests." Her creation depicted a blood stain-stained swastika and a fallen dove, also defiled by blood.

"Through these symbols, I hope to show how the cruelty of the Nazis caused the death of peace and freedom for the 6,000,000 men, women and children who were Holocaust victims," she explained. Lee's three-dimensional piece also included barbed wire surrounding a cluster of buildings. "The barbed wire reminded me of the 38th parallel, the border which separates North and South Korea," Lee said, adding "I wanted to include this symbol to show the universality of the Holocaust and the importance of remembering its many lessons."