Chapman University in America has been running a writing, poetry and art competition for the past 17 years.
This contest allows young high school students from around the world to put a memory of a Holocaust survivor forward into a piece of art or writing. Presented by Chapman’s Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education, the contest is the largest in the nation, reaching 19 other states in the US as well as Canada, Poland and South Africa.
This year, 5 700 students submitted their essays, poems, films and artwork to the contest inspired by the stories of Holocaust survivors via video testimonies made available to students by the USC Shoah Foundation Institute and The 1939 Society.
Three works per participating school were then chosen and sent on to be entered officially in the contest. Those works were blind-judged by a panel of Holocaust survivors, local businesspeople, professionals, organisation leaders and Chapman faculty and students.
Gemma Davies, a Grade 10 pupil from Redhill School in Sandton won the poetry section with her poem entitled Brother. She used the survivor testimony of Engelina Billauer to, Telling it Forward: Making Memory Matter, which was the theme of the competition. “The way Engelina spoke about her brother’s suicide drew me to her. She was very young at the time and the whole incident was hushed up. She was sent to the camps soon after that and her whole life fell apart. She was missing her brother, her rock, and I wanted to write about that,” said Gemma.
Bronwen Davies couldn’t be prouder of her daughter. “Gemma gave me her poem before it was ever submitted, and asked me to check it and make corrections. When I read the poem, I actually got tears in my eyes. I was stunned that my little girl could write such a beautiful poem. I’m so unbelievably proud of her,” said Bronwen.
As part of her prize, Gemma will be embarking on a study of some of the universities in America, at the end of June.
Read more:
Bryanston teams rah-rah all the way to provincial champs
Step out for Unity College and you may spot the Big Five
