Witkowski wins annual Geifman Prize

Victoria Witkowski, a junior from Dousman, Wis., is this year's winner of the Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies, an annual student competition with awards up to $500.

Faculty members of The Center for the Study of Judaism and Jewish Culture serve as adjudicators.

Witkowski's essay is entitled, "German Imperialism and the Holocaust."    

She is majoring in history and anthropology.                             

Benjamin Bruster and Mason Sargent tied for second place.

Bruster's essay is "Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: Anti-Semitism Hopelessness, and the Rise of Nazi Party."

He is a senior from Bettendorf, Iowa, majoring in geography and history.

Sargent entered "Writing for Hope, Humanity, and Multiculturalism: Cynthia Ozick’s 'The Shawl.'"

He is a junior from Rockford, Ill., majoring in creative writing.
                                                         
Honorable mention went to Giselle Carter for "The Shawl: Of Which Bears the Facade."    

She is a senior from Carol Stream, Ill., majoring in biology.
                    
(The Shawl is a short story first published by Cynthia Ozick in 1980 in The New Yorker. It tells the story of two women and a baby on their march to and internment in a Nazi concentration camp.)    

The 12 entries included essays, a poem, a film, and visual art. Faculty members of the Center for the Study of Judaism and Jewish Culture are Janina Ehrlich, David Ellis, Jason Mahn, Douglas Parvin, Heidi Storl, Christopher Strunk, and Mike Wolf and Rowen Schussheim-Anderson. 

The competition and other programming, including library resources, is made possible by the Geifman Endowment in Judaica. This endowment was established in 1992 by late Rock Island residents Gerry and Morris M. Geifman.