Students from public and parochial schools across Staten Island were invited to submit works of visual and written art to the Wagner College Holocaust Center in honor of the “life, courage and spirit” of Anne Frank.
The works — ranging from short verses to long, experimental poems and from computer generated images to detailed drawings — were judged by student James Merlino, alumni Jennifer Weile and Ruth Kupperberg, Holocaust Center Advisory Board Chair Fern Zagor, and Wagner faculty affiliated with the center.
It is the eighth annual student art contest sponsored by the Holocaust Center, and the first focused on Anne Frank.
Winners of awards were announced June 12, Anne’s birthday. Julianna Davis of Notre Dame Academy took first place with a poem about the famed diarist’s life, touching in part on her final days in a concentration camp: “Where your worst nightmares are awakened/Where everything is taken.//But perhaps there was one thing/ Auschwitz couldn't take,/It was the integrity of young Anne Frank/One who still had hope and faith/ One light that could never fade.”
Second place went to Luo Jung of IS 75, with a collage of Anne’s face and surroundings and quotes from her diary; third was Lucas Lui of Monsignor Farrell High School, and Julianna McConnell of Notre Dame received honorable mention.
“It’s hard to believe these are young students,” Zagor said. “Much of the student work I read was equal to published poets we discuss in the poetry group I attend. I look forward to sharing their work.”
This year’s contest was held in memory of Joel Cohen (’50), sponsored by his family. A writer and Staten Island Advance columnist, Cohen wrote an essay in 2009 reflecting on his connection to Anne and visit to the Anne Frank House, noting that he was born only 18 days before her. He wondered if, “but for the grace of geography, our fates might have been reversed?”
