Contest to focus on Holocaust children

This year's theme is: 'Children in Crisis: Voices from the Holocaust.'
YOUNGSTOWN -- Schoolchildren and college students from Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties as well as western Pennsylvania are invited to enter a Holocaust Writing Contest.
The annual competition, run in conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day on April 15, is sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Youngstown Area Jewish Federation.
The theme for this year's contest is "Children in Crisis: Voices from the Holocaust."
Only a small fraction of European Jewish children survived the Holocaust. More than 1 million of them were among the 6 million Jews killed in the Nazi campaign of genocide by the time World War II ended in 1945.
Even liberation from Nazi death camps brought no end to the suffering of the surviving children. Many had no homes to return to, no place where they truly felt safe, and no living relatives with whom to rebuild their lives.
The Holocaust Writing Contest is open to children from grades seven to 12 in public and private schools as well as students attending area universities. They are invited to submit an original piece of poetry and/or a narrative composition in four categories: grades seven and eight; grades nine and 10; grades 11 and 12; and college.
Each category will receive one award for poetry and one for narrative writing.
All entries must be typed or printed, double-spaced on one side of numbered pages, up to 1,500 words, and accompanied by a title page containing the author's name, home address and telephone number, school address and phone number, teacher's name and grade level.
The deadline is March 29. Submissions can be mailed to the Jewish Community Relations Council, 505 Gypsy Lane, Youngstown 44504-1314 or e-mailed in the Microsoft Word format to jcrc@jewishyoungstown.org.
The award presentation will be made during the Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at noon April 16 at the Mahoning County Courthouse, 120 Market St.