The Cape Town Holocaust Centre runs an annual Human Rights art and writing competition.

What is the aim of the Human Rights 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.

Who can enter?

• 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.

The competition topics

2012: Responding to Injustice
Learners examined examples of individuals who risked their lives and the lives of their families to save Jews. Our hope was that the competition would 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

Previous Categories

2011: Responding to Injustice
Learners examined examples of individuals who risked their lives and the lives of their families to save Jews. Our hope was that the competition would facilitate a greater understanding of the need to protect Human Rights and respond to injustice in this country and globally.

The competition was aimed at encouraging cross-curricular study.

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.

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.

Previous entries

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. Camilla Christie (grade 11)

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” Winning Art from 2007/8