Cheli Schochet wins national contest

PHDS eighth grader Cheli Schochet has won first place for grades 7 and 8 in the Kleinman Holocaust Education Center’s national “The Holocaust Diaries Student Competition.”  This year’s contest included excerpts from three different Holocaust diaries, and the writings students read were grade-level specific. After students reflected upon the text, they could choose to write a letter to the diarist sharing their connections, observations and questions; or create a promotional poster about the diary excerpt encouraging others to read the fully published work. 

Students in grades 7 and 8 read the diary of Rywka Lipszyc (pronounced Rivka Lipschitz), a 14-year old Jewish girl, orphaned and living in the Lodz ghetto in Poland. The diary spans the period from October 1943 to April 1944. Rywka was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau in August 1944, and a Red Army doctor reportedly discovered pages from the diary outside the Auschwitz crematorium during liberation in 1945. The diary remained in the doctor’s possession for more than a half-century, until after her death, when her granddaughter brought it to be published in San Francisco.

Cheli’s work, and that of the other winners, will be on display at the Kleinman Holocaust Education Center in New York and on their website, kfhec.org. 

A special thank you to Rabbi Zimmerman, English teacher, for having his students participate in this contest.