The Sol and Sally Rosenkranz Holocaust Educator of the Year Award
The Ninth Candle is honored to help carry the legacy of Sol and Sally Rosenkranz forward, ensuring that their story continues to inspire students and educators for years to come.
The Sol and Sally Rosenkranz Holocaust Educator of the Year Award is a new national award that celebrates outstanding classroom practice in Holocaust education in the United States. Each year, it will recognize one educator who has made an exceptional impact on their middle or high school students.
The winner will receive a custom trophy and a substantial, curated collection of books for their school’s library. (This collection will include survivor memoirs, children’s literature, historical scholarship on various topics, and pedagogical guides for teachers.) The winner will also be invited to speak at select events for The Ninth Candle in the 2027-28 school year. In addition to the winner’s award, we will also give an Emerging Educator Award to an outstanding educator with fewer than five years of teaching experience.
Candidates for the Sol and Sally Rosenkranz Holocaust Educator of the Year Award must demonstrate that they have introduced their students to primary sources and the fundamental principles of historical investigation, and that they have fostered constructive discussion around sensitive topics in the classroom. The Award is intended to honor an educator who has gone beyond teaching dates and events to cultivate their students’ critical thinking skills, and to deepen their understanding of why the Holocaust happened in the time and place that it did – and of why it continues to be relevant today.
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Sol and Sally Rosenkranz
Sol Rosenkranz
Can painful memories be a source of fulfillment? For Sol Rosenkranz (1918-2019), that was likely the case. After losing every member of his immediate family except one, and then after surviving six slave labor camps in Poland, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, Sol was able, late in life, to find purpose in telling his painful tale to many thousands of listeners during his over twenty years as a member of the Speakers Bureau of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York.
From a family of tanners in a small town in central Poland, Krosniewice, Sol had a traditional Jewish upbringing. It was only in a moment of chutzpah during the harsh winter of 1942, when he gave the German in charge of the Jewish ghetto a fur collar for his son to wear, that he summoned the courage to ask: “What will happen to the Jews?” He was told that their fate would be sealed on March 1. As a result, at age 22, Sol guided his mother and other family members out of the ghetto one day before, enabling them to survive for at least another six months.
Late in life there were nightmares that had him tumbling out of bed, but there were also moments of extreme satisfaction when visitors to the Museum, or students at the countless schools he visited, spoke to him or wrote to him to express how meaningful his testimony had been. So pain alchemized into fulfillment. On his tombstone are the words: A LIFE LIVED WITH PURPOSE.
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Sally Rosenkranz
Sally Rosenkranz (1926-1996) was born Sala Kuperwaser in Zaklikow, a small mill town in southeastern Poland near the Ukrainian border. She was 13 years old when Germany invaded Poland in 1939, 19 when the war ended, and 21 when her first child, Joel, was born in New York City in 1947.
In between was her time - of uncertain duration - as a prisoner in Auschwitz, indelibly marked by the number on her forearm. Unlike Sol, Sally would not return to that painful period in her life and refused to share the story of how she escaped the Nazi killing machine at this most infamous of extermination camps, or of how she was able to survive the war.
After meeting Sol in the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons Camp, quickly marrying, and then leaving Germany on the second boat to New York, the Marine Perch, Sally focused on raising a family (eventually comprised of two more children, Melvin and Rita) in their home in Brooklyn, New York, where they settled by 1950. She acclimated to her new world with focus and energy, becoming an American, healing with her surviving family members, and steadfastly supporting her husband and children in all of their endeavors. A different kind of heroism.
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How to Enter
Eligibility: Candidates must: a) currently teach students in grades 6–12 in any kind of middle or high school anywhere in the United States; and b) teach the Holocaust in any subject, including but not limited to art, civics, history, language & literature, music, or social sciences.
Nomination process: Self-nominations are encouraged. Candidates may also be nominated by colleagues, department chairs, or principals, or students or parents. The nomination form is available here. Nominations will close at midnight ET on Sunday, October 4th, 2026.
Stage One: By Monday, November 2nd, 2026, up to 50 selected nominees will be invited to submit a short piece of writing (not to exceed 500 words) to explain their philosophy for teaching the Holocaust, plus a description of one recent lesson on the subject that made a significant impact on their students (supporting evidence may include lesson plans and student projects). Beyond making effective use of the resources available in their schools and communities, we will be especially interested in innovative teaching that draws on current scholarship and encourages students to engage in meaningful inquiry and investigation.
Stage Two: By Monday, December 7th, 2026, up to five finalists will be invited to discuss their teaching with a panel of specialists, and to answer questions about their materials. Discussions will take place in early January, 2027.
The winner of The Sol and Sally Rosenkranz Holocaust Educator of the Year Award will be announced on January 27th, 2027 – International Holocaust Remembrance Day.