Never Again Spokane

Don't forget that our winning art pieces are on display at the Central Library in downtown Spokane during the month of May. Check them out in person if you haven't seem them yet! We think you'll be as impressed as we were!

We've also now received over 200 submissions to our Middle and High School divisions of the Eva Lassman Memorial Writing Contest. We are starting to read them now and are so grateful for all the students and teachers who put so much thought and effort into this year's contests!!

And finally, this year’s winner of he Jessica Stein Memorial Art Contest was Ally Hendricks, an 11th grader at University High School. Her piece is entitled “Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness?” We were absolutely stunned by the haunting image of the St. Louis ship in the background, escaping the horrors of N**i Germany through the choppy Atlantic Ocean. FDR’s stoic look seems to embody the perils of indifference. This is an image we will not forget anytime soon. Congrats Ally!! She wrote:

“On 13 May, 1939, the German transatlantic ship known as the St. Louis sailed with 937 Jews fleeing the Third Reich from Hamburg, Germany. They sailed towards the America’s for refuge; a new home. After applying for US 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 2/3 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 4 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?”

Turning to our winners! This year we had a tie for second place in the Jessica Stein Memorial Art Contest. Hannah Lind is a 12th grader at Ridgeline High School and her piece is titled “The Weight of What We Watched.” We loved the way that Hannah’s piece plays with the contrast between the background and the foreground as she reminds us that we cannot be indifferent to the way a child is impacted by the horrors of war. She wrote:

“In this charcoal drawing, a man solemnly reflects on the anti-Semitism of today while viewing an article on his phone. Visions of the horrors of the Holocaust come to his mind, including one of a young boy, trapped behind the barbed wire of a concentration camp. Torn up excerpts of The Diary of Anne Frank line the background of the piece. Anne was a girl who had “only one hope; that this antisemitism is just a passing thing.” The weight Anne Frank felt while questioning a world of animosity was unimaginable, and she was only a teenage girl. We will never be able to comprehend the extent of this grief; however, the youth of today need to acknowledge that weight.”

A next runner up in the Jessica Stein Memorial Art Contest was Colette Skojec, a 11th grader at Ferris High School. Her piece is titled “Chose Not to Hear A Hundred Crying Voices.” What an inspirational depiction of how much more the US could have done in a time of global crisis. The image of the suffering crowd is almost haunting. Colette wrote:

“This piece is based on the Holocaust and the U.S. response. The piece pictures a man (representing America), a little girl (Holocaust victim), and many other faces; the faces of many lost Holocaust victims. The man’s blindfold has ‘Ignorance’ written across it, and he is covering his ears – showing how the U.S. had adequate information but chose not to listen or help. The little girl has the words ‘compassion’, ‘activism’, and ‘education’ on her dress to show that America should have done more to help with all the resources they had. I was inspired to draw this because I believe every country that was in a position to help, should have. It could have saved millions of lives.”

Another runner up in the Jessica Stein Memorial Art Contest was Natalie Williams, a 10th grader at Bryant/TEC. Her piece is titled “The Cyclone of Indifference”. Natalie had such an impressive capacity to draw on different artistic media to weave together a piece that was both chaotic and delivered a clear message about indifference. From far away the problems of the world are a confusing jumble, but when we pause to look up close we see the real tragedy. What a thoughtful artistic representation! Natalie wrote:

Indifference and apathy, such as the U.S. indifference to the Holocaust, do far more to stimulate problems than to stop them. But indifference can be disrupted, just as glass can be shattered. I cut the glass in organic, imperfect shapes and left the edges sharp, because problems are messy and painful. The words on the glass are difficult to see from far away but get clearer with proximity. Likewise, problems can be obscured with distance but grow worse the nearer you are. The rings in the wooden base symbolize how issues have complex layers that take time to develop and time to end. The wire is a tornado-shaped spiral because problems are cycles that can become violent and dangerous—like tornadoes—when ignored. It ends in a megaphone, because an essential method in stopping indifference is to discuss the issues. To end the cycle, we have to speak up.

2nd place in the middle school division of the 2023 Jessica Stein Memorial Art Contest went to Ella Hoerner. We were really struck by the emotional contrast of the struggle in the foreground and the depiction of indifference in the background. Really interesting use of multiple artistic media!

The piece is titled "True Heroes" and Ella wrote:

My art piece shows a man held down by the chains of his religion, race, and beliefs. The man has his heart hanging from his chest, bleeding. This symbolizes that in the Holocaust, dehumanization was used to justify the inhumane and cruel actions done toward the Jews. In the background, people are walking in a uniform line holding the tools to cut the chains free, only one person in the background turns and looks opening his mouth and protesting the scene before him. The people behind him, so used to the usual movement, runs into his back and falls on their backs, none of them have mouths besides the one speaking out. This symbolizes that indifference is normalizing the things that are wrong, and just following the person in front of them, never really paying attention to their surroundings to see if they need to move their feet in the way they want or need to go. Being so used to being silent that their mouths are glued shut over time. All the project stands on a hard cover book, symbolizing a story never told. Everyone has the tools to battle indifference, but you need to choose to use them.