HMD 2016: The Dora Love Prize
The Dora Love Prize was created in 2012 in memory of Dora Love, a Holocaust survivor who worked tirelessly to raise awareness about the Holocaust and the attitudes that made the Holocaust possible.
Currently open to schools in Essex and Suffolk, pupils in Key Stages 2 and 3 are invited to submit projects to raise awareness about the Holocaust, and the Prize is awarded during Holocaust Memorial Week at the University of Essex. Founder of the Prize Professor Rainer Schulze said ‘the Dora Love Prize intends to continue Dora’s work – which if anything is no doubt more important today than ever’.
In September 2015 the participating pupils attended an Introduction Day based on the Holocaust Memorial Day 2016 theme Don’t stand by. Through a series of workshops, and a talk from Holocaust survivor Frank Bright, the day was designed to teach the pupils more about Dora Love’s life and work, Jewish resistance, both Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust and modern day discrimination taking place against Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. For the pupils this acts as a starting point for planning their projects. Local artists worked with the pupils on ways of expressing their ideas through performance, poetry and arts.
Many of the submitted projects made use of the internet and social media to engage wider audiences and reinforce the link between events of the past and today. In their projects the pupils made insightful connections between antisemitic newspaper articles and cartoons from the 1930s and anti-refugee newspaper articles and cartoons used today. They commemorated all victims of the Holocaust and Nazi persecution of other groups, including Jews, Roma, gay men and disabled people.
The 2015-16 Dora Love Prize was awarded to Northgate High School, Ipswich. Their project, entitled ‘Branching out for a better future’, featured a ‘Tree of Humanity’ to represent shared identity, workshops for primary school children and an online resource.
Professor Schulze said ‘the most rewarding experience for me about running the Dora Love Prize is witnessing the enthusiasm and the joyful seriousness of the pupils involved. They come up with wonderful ideas and projects – which are both heart-warming and humbling. Dora would be so proud!’