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Spokane Community Observance of the Holocaust Committee announces winners for annual art contest

First place in the high school division is “Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness?” an oil painting by Ally Hendricks, a University High School junior. Hendricks writes: “On May 13, 1939, the German transatlantic ship known as the St. Louis sailed with 937 Jews fleeing the Third Reich from Hamburg, Germany. They sailed toward the Americas for refuge; a new home. After applying for U.S. visas, all there was to do now was wait in Havana, Cuba. To bask in the relief they had been dreaming of. To remember the familiar feeling of a home and safety. Surely, they were safe now, right? Surely no one could be as heartless as to turn away these helpless people threatened to be annihilated, correct? Even as they were on the coast of their freedom, they were turned away. After they completed their journey, most likely feeling at ease, ultimately, they were forced to be sent back to Europe by the American people and Congress. Back to their ultimate demise, their fates sealed. “The topic for this year’s Holocaust Art Contest is ‘The Perils of Indifference.’ You could name tens of hundreds of different instances in history where there were significant and infamous indifferences that, could have possibly, prevented more death to have occurred during the Holocaust. Some 6 million Jewish deaths alone, over two-thirds of Germany’s Jewish population at the time, were documented. I used the events of the St. Louis, because I think it’s a perfect way to collectively sum up the level of indifference that existed from the entire world towards the victims. It was a very hands-on and personal form of severe indifference, in my opinion. “And we all watched it happen. The rest of the world sat there with their popcorn and their comfortable chairs, watching it all unfold. For four terror-stricken years. Would that number have changed if someone had said something? Had someone done something more? Had something even been thought of? And the truth is that we will always be stuck wondering, wondering until the Holocaust is a much later forgotten in our history books, until no one cares for it anymore and it is left in the world’s inevitably obliterated and buried past – when the sky falls and humanity is ultimately no more. Had a moment of action been swapped for a moment of indifference; just how different would our world be?” (Ally Hendricks)
First place in the high school division is “Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness?” an oil painting by Ally Hendricks, a University High School junior. Hendricks writes: “On May 13, 1939, the German transatlantic ship known as the St. Louis sailed with 937 Jews fleeing the Third Reich from Hamburg, Germany. They sailed toward the Americas for refuge; a new home. After applying for U.S. visas, all there was to do now was wait in Havana, Cuba. To bask in the relief they had been dreaming of. To remember the familiar feeling of a home and safety. Surely, they were safe now, right? Surely no one could be as heartless as to turn away these helpless people threatened to be annihilated, correct? Even as they were on the coast of their freedom, they were turned away. After they completed their journey, most likely feeling at ease, ultimately, they were forced to be sent back to Europe by the American people and Congress. Back to their ultimate demise, their fates sealed. “The topic for this year’s Holocaust Art Contest is ‘The Perils of Indifference.’ You could name tens of hundreds of different instances in history where there were significant and infamous indifferences that, could have possibly, prevented more death to have occurred during the Holocaust. Some 6 million Jewish deaths alone, over two-thirds of Germany’s Jewish population at the time, were documented. I used the events of the St. Louis, because I think it’s a perfect way to collectively sum up the level of indifference that existed from the entire world towards the victims. It was a very hands-on and personal form of severe indifference, in my opinion. “And we all watched it happen. The rest of the world sat there with their popcorn and their comfortable chairs, watching it all unfold. For four terror-stricken years. Would that number have changed if someone had said something? Had someone done something more? Had something even been thought of? And the truth is that we will always be stuck wondering, wondering until the Holocaust is a much later forgotten in our history books, until no one cares for it anymore and it is left in the world’s inevitably obliterated and buried past – when the sky falls and humanity is ultimately no more. Had a moment of action been swapped for a moment of indifference; just how different would our world be?” (Ally Hendricks)
From staff reports

From staff reports

The Spokane Community Observance of the Holocaust Committee has announced the winners for its annual Jessica Stein Memorial Art Contest.

Ally Hendricks, a University High junior, won first place in the high school division for her oil painting titled “Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness?”

Jonah Elster, Salk Middle School eighth-grader, won first place in the middle school division for “Giving Hope.”

This year’s theme was “The Dangers of Indifference: The U.S. and the Holocaust.” The committee challenged middle school and high school students to consider the meaning of a 1999 quote from Holocaust survivor, author and Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel: “Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor – never his victim.”

Using resources provided by the committee or teachers, students were asked to think about what the international community, and especially the United States, could have done to disrupt the Nazis’ attempted extermination of the Jews.

High school students competed for cash prizes of $100 to $400. Prizes for middle school winners range from $75 to $250.

The winning art pieces will be recognized at 7 p.m. Thursday at Temple Beth Shalom’s Spokane Community Observance of the Holocaust.

The keynote speaker for the observance is Raymond Sun, associate history professor at Washington State University. His talk is titled: “Policies, Papers, and Polls: America’s Indifference to Jewish Refugees, 1933-41.”

Masks are recommended for the observance, and more information can be found online at www.spokanetbs.org or by calling (509) 747-3304 or emailing neveragain-spokane@comcast.net.

The art contest winners’ work will also be exhibited May 1-23 at the Central Library in downtown Spokane.