White Rose Student Essay Contest 


The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education is pleased to announce its seventeenth annual White Rose Student Essay Contest, open to 8th through 12th grade students in the 18 county Greater Kansas City area. Please click on each of the following, as some of the contest procedures have changed.

THEME IMPORTANT LINKS AND TEACHING TOOLS CRITERIA GUIDELINES FOR EDUCATORS ELIGIBLE COUNTIES

THEME

1942: Destruction of the Polish Ghettos

After the establishment of the death camp system in 1941, the full-scale destruction of the Polish ghettos commenced in 1942. By summer and early fall, massive deportations were under way and the Operation Reinhard camps (Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka), which were designated for the murder of those communities, were operating at full capacity.

Part A: Research the history of one Polish ghetto from the list below and explore the first-person testimony of at least one Jewish person who experienced or witnessed the deportation from that ghetto during 1942. Describe the conditions in the ghetto, the circumstances that deportation created for the Jewish community in that ghetto, and how the person you researched personally experienced the history you have described.

Part B: How does learning about the Holocaust through the personal testimony of an individual make this history more meaningful to you?

You must base your research on one of the following ghettos:
Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lvov, Miedzyrzec, Prezemysl, Radom, Tarnów, Tomaszow Mazowiecki, Zamosc

Part A should be research-based and should account for the majority of the essay. Part B should focus on the student's personal reflections based on his/her research.


IMPORTANT LINKS AND TEACHING TOOLS

POSTMARK DEADLINE: MONDAY APRIL 2, 2012
Please refer to EACH of these links for important details:

CRITERIA

Each contestant is limited to one entry per year. Previous winners may enter again. Essays will be evaluated on development of content and theme, original expression, historical accuracy, grammar, and mechanics.

The most successful essays will meet the following criteria:
  • Adherence to theme, demonstrating substantial supporting detail for Part A
  • Evidence of comprehensive and accurate historical research
  • Sincere passion, personal insight, and unique writing style with minimal direct quotes
  • Synthesis of information gathered from a variety of both electronic and non-electronic sources, all properly cited. All citation styles are accepted, but citations must be consistent.
  • No more than two errors in grammar, spelling, or mechanics.
  • Completed entry form, including authentic, original signatures where indicated.
  • Properly recorded citations (including those for specific ideas as well as direct quotes) and a detailed bibliography reflecting a variety of both books and electronic sources. Whole books found online are considered electronic sources. Internal citations are acceptable.
  • Typed double-spaced on 8 1/2” x 11” plain white paper, with one-inch margins and size 12 font. Use only one side of the paper.
  • Electronic copy of essay, cover sheet, and bibliography --- submitted as ONE document --- in Word format. Students may submit on an individual CD-rom or jump drive labeled with student’s name, school, and teacher’s name OR teacher may submit one disk/drive with all student submissions saved as separate documents titled by students' names.
  • Five copies of essay, each stapled in the upper left corner. To ensure blind judging, the student’s name and school should appear ONLY on one cover sheet and should not appear on other pages of the essay. Only one cover sheet is necessary for the five copies. Do not use a cover or binder.
Entries not meeting the following criteria are subject to disqualification:
  • Essays must be free of plagiarism and will be verified for original wording through web-based educational services. Those with passages copied directly from other sources, without proper citations, or containing vast amounts of quoted or minimally paraphrased material are subject to disqualification.
  • Maximum of 1200 words. All words in the body of the essay are counted in the total. Internal citations do not count. Disks will be used to determine word count.
  • Essays must reflect historical research and are not to be written in the first-person or as fiction.
  • The essay must adhere to the contest theme
Decisions of the judges are final.

GUIDELINES FOR EDUCATORS

  • Entries are limited to 1,200 words. This includes the body of the paper only. It does not include the cover sheet, title, footnotes, or bibliography. Papers exceeding this limit, even by one word, will be disqualified. Students should use the “Word Count” function on their computers. We will.
  • MCHE encourages teachers to utilize this writing contest as a classroom exercise. To ensure that each essay receives the full attention of our judges, however, sponsoring teachers are limited to submitting no more than 10 essays per division (8-9 and 10-12).
  • Each essay should reflect the student’s own work, guided and reviewed, but not edited in detail by the sponsoring teacher. Teachers should take care in attesting to compliance with contest requirements. A completed entry form with authentic, original (not photocopied) signatures must accompany each essay.
  • We strongly recommend that students link to reliable web sites through www.mchekc.org and visit MCHE’s Resource Center, which houses more than 1,400 titles available for free loan. Hours are 8:30 until 5:00, Monday through Friday and until 7 PM on Wednesdays when school is in session.
  • Plagiarism results in disqualification.
  • Entries must be postmarked NO LATER THAN Monday, April 2, 2012, or delivered in person to the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education office by 5:00 PM that day. Essays postmarked after the deadline, those brought to MCHE after the designated time, or essays sent by fax or e- mail will not qualify for judging.

ELIGIBLE COUNTIES

 Kansas : Atchison, Douglas, Franklin, Johnson, Leavenworth, Miami, Shawnee, Wyandotte
Missouri: Buchanan, Cass, Clay, Clinton, Jackson, Johnson, Lafayette, Livingston, Platte, Ray

SPONSORS

 Gould Charitable Foundation
MCHE White Rose Society 
 

Questions? Contact Jessica Rockhold at 913-327-8195.

The contest is named in memory of Hans and Sophie Scholl, German university students who, along with several friends and their professor, were arrested and executed for distributing leaflets denouncing the evils of the Nazi regime. The project commemorates the heroic efforts of these brave young people, members of the White Rose, who gave their lives for the causes of understanding, tolerance, and freedom. May their memories inspire us to reflect upon our own responsibilities as citizens in a democratic nation.