Seaman students win award for documentary about Jewish Resistance member during the Holocaust

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) - Two senior Seaman High School students were awarded for sharing the unknown story of a young Jewish girl surviving World War II in Europe.

Anna McLaughlin and Danika Szopinski were awarded the $1,000 Founder’s Award from the Lowell Milken Center (LMC) for Unsung Heroes based in Fort Scott for their documentary about a young Jewish courier and member of the Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Bela Hazan.

McLaughlin and Szopinski submitted their documentary to the LMC’s 2024 Discovery Award competition. It is an international contest to encourage fourth through 12th-grade students to pursue primary and secondary research projects about the untold stories of those who impacted history.

“I am very excited. Just to keep Bela Hazan’s story alive and to show future generations that individuals, like average individuals, can do extraordinary things,” said McLaughlin.

“I think it is pretty cool. I am glad we got to represent Bela Hazan and get her story spread,” said Szopinski. “I was a little nervous but most of that has passed so now it is just excited jitters.

Aided with their primary and secondary research including an interview with Hazan’s son, Yoel Ya’ari, McLaughlin and Szopinski shared the impact Hazan made during the war by smuggling information, money, and arms throughout the area ghettos.

“[Ya’ari] was very excited,” said McLaughlin. “From the beginning, he was very excited. Thrilled that we were covering his mother’s story and at the end he was just really proud of all of our work, and he was crucial in helping us figure out all of our information, organizing it, and answering any questions we had.”

“Bela Hazan’s story - the project that Anna and Danika created - has a powerful conversation of how a woman stood up for what she believed in, knew was right, and truly made a difference during the Holocaust by helping the Jewish Resistance, saving lives, and just being passionate about doing the right thing and making a positive change,” said LMC program director, Megan Felt.

The students plan to split the reward money and save it for college. The documentary took the students one year to create with help from their teacher and LMC Fellow Susan Sittenauer.

“We started this project back in September of last year and so all of last year we were worked on it,” said Szopinski. “We actually had a class with Ms. Sittenauer, so every other day we would come in for about 85 minutes a day and just find sources and put together our project.”

Szopinski said she and McLaughlin learned about Hazan’s story through a podcast called “History’s Secret Heroes” hosted by actress Helena Bonham Carter.

More than $25,000 of cash prizes have been awarded to elementary, middle, and high school students around the world this year.

“Definitely take this opportunity because it is such a rewarding experience and although the workload is a daunting thing to think about,” said McLaughlin. “It is definitely rewarding because the things that you learn and how inspiring the things you learn are really cool and I think it’s something that everyone should experience at least once.”

The documentary is on the Lowell Milken Center website and their social media pages including YouTube.

The entire list of this year’s winners can be found HERE.

Some other winners listed from Kansas include:

• Charlee and Hadley Wells from the Christian Learning Center in Fort Scott, KS, featuring unsung hero Emile Berliner
• Charlie Stones from Washburn Rural in Topeka, KS, featuring unsung hero Don Haskins

Some of this year’s international winners are from Kazakhstan and Ukraine.