SAN ANGELO, TX - In a moment of celebration at Wall High School, teacher Elizabeth SoRelle proudly announced that her senior literature students' project had been selected as a winning entry for the Yad Vashem Who's Your Hero project.
The accomplishment reflects the students' dedication to exploring and honoring stories of heroism during the Holocaust.
“Today we are celebrating in room 110,” Wall ISD Teacher Elizabeth SoRelle stated. “My senior literature students’ amazing group project was selected as a winner for the Yad Vashem Who’s Your Hero project. I am so incredibly proud of their hard work and creativity.”
According to information from the Yad Vashem Who’s Your Hero project, it aims to “Illuminate the stories of those who dared to defend humanity when, all around them, evil prevailed. By focusing on this element of the Holocaust we invite our students to be inspired by the best of human character.”
The project encourages students to research individuals who acted heroically during the Holocaust and the years leading up to it.
The Wall Classroom decided to feature their project over Rena Quint, and her “many mothers.”
Information from Yad Vashem states that Quint was born as Freida "Freidel" Lichtenstein in December 1935 in the city of Piotrkow Tribunalski, Poland.
In 1939, when Quint was three years old, the Nazis invaded and occupied her hometown.
In October 1942, her mother and her two older brothers were deported to the extermination camp of Treblinka where they were murdered.
Quint, who was not yet seven years old, was deported with her father to a concentration camp, where she pretended to be a boy in order to survive.
When Quint's father was murdered, she was left alone in the camp. She was finally sent to the Bergen Belsen concentration camp.
In the various camps she was interned she was adopted by different women, but they all died. At the end of the war, Quint went to Sweden, where she was adopted by a Holocaust survivor who passed away a few months later.
In 1946, Quint emigrated to the United States with an adoptive mother, also a Holocaust survivor, who after three months also passed away as a result of her poor physical condition. Quint was then adopted by a Jewish couple who didn't have children.
Quint earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in education and worked as a teacher in schools and, as a lecturer at Adelphi University in New York and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
In 1984, Quint and her husband emigrated to Israel with their four children who were already married.
Quint has been volunteering for more than 30 years at Yad Vashem where she meets with groups from around the world.
When it comes to the project, the selected individuals' stories are showcased through various mediums such as writing, photography, artwork, music, videography, graphic novels, poetry, or any other form.
The projects must be designed for online exhibition, with graphic submissions adhering to a minimum DPI of 300.
Students are required to provide a text of up to 500 words explaining the rationale behind their choice and why the chosen person's story is essential to share even eighty years later.
The submitted projects are judged by a committee of educators and historians from Yad Vashem, with a public online event scheduled for January 27th, 2024 - International Holocaust Remembrance Day - to showcase the winning entries.
Winners, along with a school official, will be invited to participate in this significant event.
The selected projects will continue to be used for educational and public purposes by Yad Vashem after the competition concludes.
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