Middle School, KSC, Students Among Hildebrandt Award Winners

Young filmmakers from the Jaffrey-Rindge Middle School were among those recognized at the eleventh annual KSC Hildebrandt Holocaust Awards program on Mon., Apr. 19.

The Hildebrandt Awards ceremony is a Keene State event that remembers the Holocaust by way of student and community art and scholarship. The awards are named for Charles Hildebrandt, professor emeritus of sociology at KSC, who founded KSC’s Center for Holocaust Studies in 1983 and served as its first director.

The three seventh- and eighth-grade students were each presented with a $100 Charles Hildebrandt Award for their documentary film The Lone Ranger: The Story of Thomas Weisshaus.

In the film, Weisshaus, a Holocaust survivor now living in Exeter, N.H., tells the story of his survival. The middle school students found Weisshaus through the Cohen Center.

Weisshaus, who attended the award ceremony, was recognized after the showing.

Other award winners included Rob Hamel, who received an award of $150 for his essay “Finding Humanity in the Inhumane,” and Zoe Bordenet, who received an award of $150 for her paper “Judenrat Leaders: Inhabitants of the ‘Grey Zone.’”

Three KSC students split the first prize award of $1,000: Megan Blais for her memoir So Here Am I, Elinor Albin for her essay “The Genocide of Homosexuals in the Holocaust,” and Heather Bowman for her poster “Kaddish: Music of Remembrance and Hope.” For more information, visit www.keene.edu/CCHS/.