A total of 13 southeast Kansas students have qualified to take part in the National History Day Championships to be held June 14-18 in College Park, Md.
More than 700,000 students competed to advance from local to state and national competition, and the top 2,000 students from across the nation will compete in College Park.
Included are Austin Hansen, Jake Hansen and Nathan Davolt, Pittsburg, who won first place in Kansas in the senior division of the group Web site category, and also received a $100 scholarship from the Smoky Hill Museum. They attend Fort Scott Christian Heights, and their teacher is Maria Bahr.
“They did a Web site titled ‘Henryk Slawik: The Man That Saved Thousands’,” Bahr said. “They were really inspired by his story. Slawik was Polish, but he went to Hungary and set up an operation to provide fake passports and identifications so they could leave Poland and go to Hungary.”
Slawik, who was born in 1894 in a small Polish village, was credited with saving 30,000 Polish refugees, 5,000 of them Jews. He also set up an orphanage for Jewish children in Vac, Hungary — to disguise it, the orphanage was officially called the School for Children of Polish Officers, and Catholic clergy were invited to come and meet with the children.
When Germany invaded Hungary in 1944, Henryk ordered all the refugees under him to evacuate Hungary. Eventually, all of Slawik’s refugees and orphans were able to escape.
“Unfortunately, Henryk wasn’t able to escape, and he was arrested on March 19, 1944,” Bahr said. “The Gestapo tortured him, but he never told them anything. They sent him to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, and in August of 1944 he was shot.”
Winning first place in the senior division of the group performance category were Reanda Mims, Grant Stucky and Keenan Gregory, Fort Scott High School students, who also won a $300 scholarship from the Kansas Council for History Education. Title of their dramatic presentation is “Recipe for Legacy: 35mm and a Wide-Angle Lens.” They were sponsored by the Lowell Milken Education Center, Fort Scott.
Theresa Schafer, Marcus Page, David Cox and Elizabeth Wallace won second place in the senior division of the group performance category for their drama titled “Cyclone in Calico: A Nation in Her Wake,” which also received the Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area “Bleeding Kansas” Award. Bahr is their teacher.
Placing second in the senior division of the group exhibit category were Kaitlyn Arnold, Alex Arnold and Beth Hill, students of Bahr at Fort Scott Christian Heights.
“They did an exhibit board on a fascinating character, ‘Barney Ford: The Black Baron of Colorado’,” Bahr said. “He’s not very well known today, but he was an escaped slave who became a very successful entrepreneur and early pioneer for civil rights in Colorado.”
She said the students spent most of the school year working on their History Day projects. “I’m really impressed with everything that History Day has opened up for students on so many sectors,” Bahr said."
Students have been raising money for their trip to the competition. Anyone wishing information about making donations may contact Bahr at Fort Scott Christian Heights, 620-223-4330, or Megan Felt at the Lowell Milken Center, 620-223-9991.
