MATTHEW WHITE, 16, a sophomore at University High School, won First Place in High School Poetry at the Sixth Annual Holocaust Art and Writing Contest on March 11. This is the second year in a row Matthew has won the contest. Both years, he won $500, and received a textbook entitled ‘The Holocaust Chronicles.’ ‘Last year, I was allowed to watch Thomas Toivi Blatt (survivor of Sobibor) and Leon Leyson (saved by Oskar Schindler) speak, and gained copies of Blatt’s ‘From The Ashes of Sobibor,” said Matthew. He also escorted a Holocaust survivor, Elisabeth Mann, during a ceremony honoring the Danes and Swedes who helped the Jews during the War. ‘This year, Gerda Weissman Klein (Oscar winner) was there to speak, and we received a copy of her book ‘All But My Life.” The contest is made possible by Chapman University, the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education and the Stern Chair in Holocaust Education, in partnership with the ‘1939’ Club (of Holocaust survivors) and the Samueli Foundation. On April 11, Matthew attended a seminar at Chapman at which Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel spoke. ‘It was a really surreal kind of thing,’ Matthew said. ‘I had read his book ‘Night’ in fourth grade. It was one of the most incredible books I ever read. It’s a terrific honor to be able to meet him.’ The theme of this year’s contest was ‘What can we do today to heal the world.’ ‘I am vehemently anti-war, so I thought I might as well make this poem political but related to the Holocaust. I wrote about how people today can better the world, filtered through the kaleidoscope of the Holocaust,’ said Matthew who also spoke out in his poem about the politics of the current U.S. administration. Matthew, whose own family came here from the Ukraine in the late 1910s, became interested in the subject in fourth grade. ‘The power of photographs became evident to me over time, and I was interested in the diversity; Jews died from Greece, where life and culture for them was utterly different from Jews living in Lithuania.’ Matthew is also interested in prose, has written novels and is working on a play. Also an actor, he is playing Jean Valjean in ‘Les Miserables’ at University High School June 3 and 4, and he played the lead role of Abuelo in the school’s Spanish-language production of ‘La Dama del Alba,’ by Alejandro Casona. Although his winning poem is in English, he wrote the title of it in Spanish, ‘Mientras So’aban, Otra Persona Se Despert’,’ which translates as ‘While you (or they) were sleeping, another person awoke.’ ‘A lot of points seem more poetic and fluid in Spanish than in English,’ he said. An excerpt from Matthew White’s prize-winning poem: Sixty years ago, we were all liberated, and we all said things would change / But in many ways, things have not; there are still madmen ruling this world / With minds poisoned by that which they themselves are too imprudent to understand / There are still masses of the manifestation of ignorance…and they themselves / With closed eyes and ears, sedentary, lost, follow these madmen to seek what they crave: / That false promise that was given unto them upon which the madmen ride o o o DANIELLE LEVANAS, daughter of the Honorable Michael Levanas and Suzanne Bragg Levanas, graduated from New York University on May 12 with the degree of bachelor of fine arts in theatre with honors. Danielle attended Corpus Christi and Marymount High School. She is currently living in New York and pursuing an acting career. o o o MACKENZIE KUGEL organized a lemonade stand and bake sale to save coral reefs with Willows Community School classmates JORDAN ARGRETT and BRADLEY FOUNTAINE on May 2 at the Palisades Recreation Center. The second graders study the ocean and are doing community service projects to bring attention to the global coral reef crisis. The students raised $300.25 over the weekend to benefit the Planetary Coral Reef Foundation, which is based in Pacific Palisades. o o o ELIZABETH GOODHUE CRAVER, a freshman at Goucher College in Maryland, was named to the dean’s list for the fall 2004 semester. o o o DAVID WEINER-CRANE has been named to the Academic Honor Roll for the winter term at Northfield Mount Hermon School, in Northfield, Massachusetts. David, a sophomore, is the son of Stephen Crane and Elizabeth Weiner.
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
