The Seventh Annual Holocaust Art & Writing Contest

Moments of Decision: Perpetrators, Witnesses, Rescuers

During the time of the Holocaust, ordinary people faced moments of decision that defined them as perpetrators, witnesses, or rescuers.  Sometimes these moments seemed very significant; other times they seemed inconsequential—but in both cases these moments of decision changed lives.

In Poland, in July 1942, a group of middle-aged men, deemed too old for army duty and assigned to a special Police Battalion, were ordered to perform an heinous and horrible task, to round up and shoot Jews—men, women, and children.  The battalion commander, Major Trapp, gave his men the option to refuse the order.  They only had to break ranks and step forward.  They would be reassigned but not punished.  Yet, only a handful accepted his offer; the majority chose to obey.  In this crucial moment of decision, these ordinary men became perpetrators.

In 1942, in Amsterdam, twenty-two-year-old Marion van Binsbergen witnessed what she describes as a “terrible thing.”  One morning, on her way to school, she saw Nazis throwing Jewish children, including babies, into trucks.   She also saw two women intervene to stop the action.  They were thrown into the trucks as well.  At that moment of decision, Marion resolved that rescue was “more important than anything else” she might do. She translated her decision into action.  Marion van Binsbergen Pritchard saved the lives of 150 Jewish children and took one life, shooting a Dutch Nazi policeman who would have betrayed her and the Jews she was hiding.  Her moment of decision led her to become a rescuer.

On May 6, 1945, sixteen-year-old Sam Goetz experienced his first day of freedom in six long years.  At that moment, the gate of the concentration camp where he was imprisoned opened and he saw “a figure in an olive brown uniform emerge from the tank.”  Sam had survived three concentration camps, including Ebensee, a sub-camp of the infamous Mauthausen concentration camp near Vienna, Austria.  He had faced countless moments where his decision could mean life or death.  In the decades after liberation, Sam made the decision to witness to his experiences by writing the book I Never Saw My Face, by easing the suffering of others through providing free eye examinations to the poor and underprivileged in his role as a doctor of optometry, and by never forgetting the American soldier who liberated him.  He searched 60 years for him until summer 2005 when he discovered that his liberator was U.S. Army sergeant Bob Persinger of Loves Park, Illinois.   For Sam, his moment of liberation coincided with the moment when he decided always to witness to what he had seen.

Above Image:
April 25, 1942. As soldiers stand guard and neighbors look on, a group of 650 Jewish deportees,
carrying a few personal belongings in bundles and suitcases, march through Würzburg along the Hindenburgstrasse from the assembly center at the Platszer Garten to the railroad station.
Photo from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Courtesy of National Archives

Winning Entries in the
Middle School Competition

First Place Art:
Laura Mai Beck

Second Place Art:
Bayli Anderson

First Place Essay:
Tito Joe Thomas

Second Place Essay:
Katherine Wilson

First Place Poem:
Sonia Ricci

Second Place Poem:
Faye Mendoza

Winning Entries in the
High School Competition

First Place Art:
Edwin Villa

First Place Art:
Kimmi Kraus

First Place Essay:
Ella Fishman

Second Place Essay:
Aurora Lachenauer

First Place Poem:
Natalie Beisner

Second Place Poem:
Madison Murphy

Above Image:

April 25, 1942.
As soldiers stand guard and neighbors look on, a group of 650 Jewish deportees, carrying a few personal belongings in bundles and suitcases, march through Würzburg along the Hindenburgstrasse from the assembly center at the Platszer Garten to the railroad station.

Photo from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Courtesy of National Archives