Writing/Art Contest
About Jacob Friedman
Henry FriedmanJacob Friedman was my father. In 1983, he died reading a newspaper in his chair at the age of eighty-three.

My father was a teenager during the First World War. His father and older brother served in the Austrian Army so he had to take care of his mother, older sister, and two younger brothers. Because of the war, my father was deprived of an academic education.

During WWII, when Nazi Germany occupied our town, Brody, Poland, Jews were forbidden to go to school and Jewish teachers could not teach. My father convinced a Jewish teacher to come and live with us on our farm; in exchange she would help my brother and me continue with our education. Even when we had to disappear and hide for eighteen months in the attic of a barn, she came with us and the little food we had, we shared with her. The teacher became a part of our family because my father valued education.

Jacob Friedman was a smart man and was an educated man in a different way. Because of his survival instincts, I am alive today and living in the United States. I never said thank you to my father for all the guidance, advice, and opportunities that he made possible for me.

I believe that Jacob would have been very happy to know about the Writing and Art Contest that is being conducted in his name. He would feel honored that students would have the opportunity to learn from the Holocaust and learn that each person is special and can make a difference, and therefore will not be indifferent when there is injustice. We do have the power to make a difference.

Jacob Friedman made a difference in my life.

- Henry Friedman
Founder, Jacob Friedman Holocaust Writing and Art Contest Memorial Fund