Holocaust essay contest underway

The 13th annual Eva Lassman Memorial Writing Contest in observance of the Holocaust is now underway and is open to local high school and middle school students.

The task this year is to “Speak up for the Other.” Students are asked to research how the World War II Nazis deemed groups of people, such as the Jews, as “other” and unfit for life. Students are then asked to submit an essay, poem or artwork that demonstrates how they would speak up for those deemed to be the “other” of today.

Information about the Holocaust, including first-person accounts from survivors, is available on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum website at www.ushmm.org.

The contest is named in honor of Eva Lassman, a Holocaust survivor who died in Spokane in 2011 at the age of 91. She and her late husband Walter, also a Holocaust survivor, came to Spokane in 1949. Eva Lassman spent the later years of the life speaking about her experiences in the Majdanek death camp. She spoke often at community events and in local schools.

The first-place winners in the middle school and high school divisions will be asked to read their work at the Spokane Community Observance of the Holocaust on April 28 at Temple Beth Shalom. The work of the first-place winners will also be published in The Spokesman-Review. Scholarships will be awarded to winning students through third place.

The deadline for written entries is Feb. 24 and the deadline for art submission is March 24. The artwork submitted will be featured at a two week exhibit at the Gonzaga University School of Law beginning April 1.

Essays and poems should be between 500 and 1,000 words long. Full contest rules and details are available on the Never Again Spokane Facebook page and from local English, social studies and art teachers.