What is the Dora Love Prize? – The Dora Love Prize

The Dora Love Prize

What exactly is the Dora Love Prize?

The Dora Love Prize is an annual prize for secondary school students informed by the Holocaust. It asks students to develop projects which link what they have learnt about the Holocaust with the world they live in today, and to take action to put an end to identity-based prejudice, discrimination, marginalisation and violence.

The prize goes to the project which expresses best that which was most important to Dora Love: speaking up against hatred wherever it occurs, never forgetting the ultimate consequence of seemingly small acts of discrimination and developing a sense of personal responsibility.

Like Dora in her educational work, the Prize takes a broad, inclusive approach, incorporating the stories and experiences of all groups persecuted, marginalised and murdered by the Nazis and all groups that suffer discrimination, marginalisation or persecution today because of their identity.

Every year, the Dora Love Prize has a different theme or emphasis, often shadowing the theme set by the UK Holocaust Memorial Day for that year. It starts out with a day of workshops by historians and creative artists, and a talk by a Holocaust survivor. Following this introduction, students have five months to work on their project before presenting it to a panel of judges which includes Dora’s daughter Janet Love, herself a leading anti-apartheid freedom fighter, democratic activist and politician in South Africa.

The Dora Love Prize gives young people memorable experiences and the confidence to make positive changes in the world around them. It continues to influence and inspire them long after they leave school.

To find out more about what the Prize could do for your students, read the blog by the Collingwood School team who were the first international school to participate in the Dora Love Prize.

The Fragility of Freedom. Short version of our film about the Dora Love Prize 2024. The full 19mins version will be out soon. © Rob Falconer

The Dora Love Prize Charity

The Dora Love Prize is now a registered charity. On 27 January 2025, the Charity Commission for England and Wales informed us that they were satisfied that the Dora Love Prize is a charity, and it was entered onto the Register of Charities with the Registered Charity Number 1211884.

At the moment, our Board of Trustees is still relatively small, and we are looking for further trustees to join the Board and help us develop and expand the Dora Love Prize.

Chair: Prof (em) Rainer Schulze
Secretary: Karen Whittingham
Treasurer: Dale Banham
Trustee: Ella Hall

A brief history of the Dora Love Prize

The Dora Love Prize was set up in 2012 by University of Essex historian Professor Rainer Schulze, following Dora’s death on 26 October 2011. The first Dora Love Prize was awarded in January 2013. Initially the Dora Love Prize only involved schools in Essex and Suffolk, the two counties where Dora did most of her educational work. Pre-COVID 19, the Prize grew year-on-year, with a steadily increasing number of schools from Essex and Suffolk and now also neighbouring counties taking part. The pandemic meant that the Dora Love Prize had to become an online event, but despite these challenges, in 2023, the first year that the Prize was fully in-person again, almost 30 schools took part in the launch event. In 2022, when the Prize celebrated its 10th anniversary, an international school, Collingwood School in Vancouver, took part and has remained involved since then, adding an important dimension.

Almost 1,500 students have taken part in the Dora Love Prize since it was set up, and testimonials from teachers and students credit the Prize for educating young people about the Holocaust in new and creative ways and giving them the confidence that they can make positive changes in the world around them. Many schools have made the Dora Love Prize a permanent part of their school year.

During the first 11 years, the Dora Love Prize was generously funded and supported by the University of Essex, but the University decided to stop supporting the Prize financially as part of a range of measures it introduced to safeguard its financial sustainability.

The Dora Love Prize is now organised and run by The Dora Love Prize Charity (see above).

Northgate High School student reads poem at the 2016 Dora Love Prize evening. © University of Essex

The story behind our logo

Our Dora Love Prize logo brings together the badges which concentration camp prisoners had to wear on their prison uniforms to identify and classify them: the yellow Star of David (which Jews had to wear) and the differently coloured triangles which identified why the prisoners had been sent to the camps: blue – foreign forced labourer and emigrant; green – professional criminal; purple – Jehovah’s Witness; red – political prisoner; black – asocial; brown – Sinti and Roma (“gypsy”); pink – homosexual. A bar above a triangle denotes repeat offender.

The one triangle which did not exist and which we added is the translucent blue triangle. It stands here for disabled people (who were not sent to concentration camps), and the colour is taken from the blue glass wall that forms part of the Memorial and Information Site for the Victims of National Socialist ‘Euthanasia’ Murders in Berlin.

(P = Pole/Polish; J = Jew/Jewish; the letter U was added by us denoting Undesirables).

TESTIMONIALS

The Dora Love Prize gives young people unforgettable experiences and the confidence to make positive change in the world around them. It continues to influence and inspire them long after they leave school. But don’t just take our word for it.

Olivia Marks-Woldman OBE, Chief Executive of the UK Holocaust Memorial Day Trust

“Since its launch the Dora Love Prize has transformed Holocaust education in the schools it works with. It is a powerful and vitally important resource that gives young people the understanding, empathy and confidence to actively challenge hatred and discrimination they see in the world around them. The involvement of the late Dora Love and Frank Bright, both of whom survived the Holocaust as children, gives students a unique opportunity to hear first-hand of the horrors endured by those who lived through this terrible moment in world history. Most remarkable of all is its ability and commitment to go further and look at the experiences of all those who were marginalised and murdered by the Nazis and in other genocides, without losing sight of the origin of the Holocaust and its significance for the Jewish community. In a world in which we sadly still witness marginalisation, discrimination and hatred of those termed ‘others’ the Dora Love Prize is a beacon of hope, a tool that empowers the next generation to believe they can make the world a better place.”

Students

“The experience really opens your eyes to the world around you and teaches you skills which the curriculum does not. I believe it is a valuable experience.” – Esme, Northgate High School pupil

“I learned the impact one person can have. It changed the way I think and act. Dora Love holds a special place in my school memories, and it shaped me both as a person and as a history nerd.” – Clarissa, The Gilberd School pupil

“The Dora Love prize is an incredible experience.” – Isobel, Northgate High School pupil

“I learnt and became more aware of how we as humans need to come together and unite against prejudice.” – Lucy, Northgate High School pupil

“I learned the importance of community. It teaches students important life lessons.” – Esme, The Gilberd School pupil

“It was a great thing to be part of and it was amazing when we met Frank Bright. It inspired me to learn more. It opens your eyes into issues in the world and learning about them and wanting to help feels amazing.” – Akshara, Northgate High School pupil

“This made me choose history as a GCSE subject.” – Ashraf, Northgate High School pupil

Teachers

“The Dora Love Prize is a call for students to act, not to merely be passive recipients of information from expert speakers, students are expected to use their newfound knowledge and understanding to make their community a better place for all. Involvement in the Dora Love Prize has enriched our curriculum and made it more responsive to student voice. In addition, we have seen many students grow in confidence as they come to understand that they can become the force for change that they want to see in their school and local community.” – Dale Banham, Deputy Headteacher, Northgate High School & Sixth Form Centre, Ipswich

“The Dora Love Prize inspires our students as it gives them the opportunity to critically engage with the world around them and reflect upon the prejudices and discrimination that still exist today. It has provided us with an opportunity to not only enrich our curriculum with a deeper understanding of the Holocaust, but also connect this past tragedy with the present.” – Sophie Foster- Subject Lead for History at the Gilberd School

“Entering the Dora Love Prize will further strengthen our students’ and school’s commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion which is a fundamental pillar of our school community in addition to reinforcing holocaust awareness.” – Ben Lane, Socials and English Teacher, Collingwood High School, West Vancouver, Canada

by Originally:Creative