What is the aim of the art and writing competition?
Our hope is that the competition will facilitate a greater understanding of the need to protect Human Rights and respond to injustice in this country and globally.
The competition is aimed at encouraging cross-curricular study.
Educators may choose to use the topics of the competition as an activity for learners’ portfolios.
ANY Grade 9 –12 learners, not necessarily only History learners.
The competition is divided into a Junior Division (Grade 9 -10) and Senior Division (Grade 11 –12).
Learners may choose to enter the writing and/or art section.
Learners may respond in English, Afrikaans or isiXhosa.
The school may submit NO MORE than a TOTAL of 12 entries PER writing and art SECTION. All entries submitted will receive a certificate from the Holocaust Centre.
The individual winning writing and art entries will receive an award at a function in 2010 and will qualify to enter the national competition. Schools that submit a body of work that shows an in-depth response, either across the grade or grades, will be considered for a special school award.
2010: Resisting Injustice For this year’s competition, learners will examine the forms resistance to the Nazi regime took, and those who resisted. Learners will be given a broad scope within which to respond: they can elect to write a research essay, or examine a representation of the Holocaust in film, literature or art. Learners can choose to submit their personal response to the Holocaust (in the form of a poem, essay or artwork). They may choose to create a memorial honouring individuals, groups or movements that resisted the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.
Previous Categories 2009: Seeking Safety in a hostile environment The topic was developed in response to the outbreak of xenophobic violence in 2008. Learners were invited to respond to the story of the plight of refugees fleeing the Nazi regime, and to reflect on the connections between the prejudice experienced of the past with contemporary events.
2008: Growing up in the shadow of the Swastika: being young in Nazi Germany We hoped that this topic would encourage learners to examine critically the manner in which the Nazis attempted to manipulate and form young people’s identities in order to support the Nazi view of who was human and who ‘undesirable’ and ultimately not worthy of life. However, as we also believe that learning about the Holocaust should encourage learners to reflect on their responsibility to others, and what that means living within a democratic society, we asked learners to examine the different ways in which young people responded to the Nazi’s attempts to form their identities.
2007: Resisting Injustice Learners were asked to examine the forms resistance to the Nazi regime took and those who resisted. Learners were given a broad scope within which to respond: they could elect to write a research essay, or examine a representation of the Holocaust in film, literature or art. Learners could choose to submit their personal response to the Holocaust (in the form of a poem, essay or artwork). They could choose to create a memorial honouring individuals, groups or movements that resisted the Nazi regime during the Holocaust.
Zero
i see
grey people in photographs
like old soggy cardboard, smelling of smoke and rust
and a silver sun in the white dawn sky;
the tired grey people watch me, and
i don’t know
if they would have wanted
me to look at them sixty-odd years later
in a museum –
do you want to be in a museum?
in the reverent quiet,
with everyone talking
so carefully in case they hurt the photographs’ feelings
do you want that?
i wonder
and then i think
that if I had been in a grey place
in a cold grey hungry place
about to become a number
just another zero number
i wouldn’t want to disappear
i wouldn’t want to slide away into the empty darkness
i’d want to be remembered
be remembered
and right now
i just want to be sad about it
i don’t want to know the numbers ‘cause numbers confuse me
i don’t have to be jewish to be sad about it
or gay or gypsy or slavic
i just have to be human, because
it’s for everyone to see and know
see and know and remember
see and know and remember and be sad
so that maybe
one day the sadness will stop happening
so that maybe
one day no one will ever have to be sad again.
so anyway i watched the movie about Anne Frank
and at the end i caught myself thinking
wistfully: oh no, poor kid – oh wouldn’t it
be nice if she had lived
had come back home –
then i realised
that i should be thinking that
6 000 000 times over
and that’s a lot of zeroes.
Senior Art Category winning entry "My Suitcase" by Catherine Paterson
Prize Winning Art 2010
Rustenburg educator Cedric van Dyk, Tracey Petersen (Education Director, Cape Town Holocaust Centre) and Richard Freedman (National Director, South African Holocaust & Genocide Foundation) with learners Jessica Loiszides and Zahra Perry, who shared first prize in the Senior Art category.
Herzlia High School learners Jessica Kermis, Nina Leon, and Emma Strumpman; seen here with their artworks; were all highly commended for their entries
In Pursuit of Normality by Jessica Loiszides, Rustenburg.
Human Uniform by Zahra Perry, Rustenburg
Prize Winning Art 2009
Georgina Annenberg receives her certificate from visiting scholar Dr Debórah Dwork.
Georgina Annenberg of Herzlia Middle School with her entry, which received the Director’s Certificate of Merit
Miranda Kantor of Herzlia Middle School with her work “Nachamu Nachamu” (Comfort Comfort) which was highly commended for her meritous work.
Tal Hartuv receives his prize from visiting scholar Dr Debórah Dwork.
Tal Hartuv of Herzlia Middle School with his prize winning entry, “Backtrack”
Miranda Kantor of Herzlia Middle School with her work “Nachamu Nachamu” (Comfort Comfort) which was highly commended for her meritous work. 
