Lake Washington School District students recognized in Holocaust Center for Humanity Student Art Contest

Two Lake Washington School District students have been recognized as winners in the Holocaust Center for Humanity’s annual Student Art Contest, an achievement that highlights the power of student voice through artistic expression and historical understanding.

The Holocaust Center for Humanity’s Student Art Contest theme this year is “The Art of Courage and Resistance.” It invites students in grades 5 through 12 from across the Pacific Northwest to explore Holocaust history and the personal stories of survivors through visual art. The contest encourages students to make meaningful connections between the past and their own lives, using creativity to examine themes of courage, resistance, resilience and memory.

This year, Lake Washington School District was proud to have two students honored among the contest winners:

• Yuna Boo, a sixth-grade student at Rose Hill Middle School, earned third place in the Grades 5 to 6 category. She wrote the following about her piece: My art depicts the note survivor Klaus Stern sent to his wife Paula Stern after the Holocaust. I was inspired by her hope and love for her husband.

   

• Thea Sima, a senior at Tesla STEM High School, received third place in the Grades 9 to 12 category. She wrote the following about her art: The tools of Carla Peperzak’s resistance—her nurse disguise, the fake documents she created, the underground newspaper, and the farmhouse where she hid relatives in—are positioned protectively over the figures moving into the light, which represent those she helped rescue as a Dutch resistance member. I was inspired by her continued courage, both as a young woman during the Holocaust and her choice to become a speaker and recall what she lived through to educate the public.

The Holocaust Center for Humanity’s Student Art Contest is designed to deepen students’ understanding of Holocaust history while fostering empathy, critical thinking and creative expression. Students research survivor stories, many of whom later rebuilt their lives in Washington state and use art to interpret powerful moments of courage and resistance during one of history’s most devastating chapters.