The 9th and 10th grade students celebrated History Day in the big auditorium on the afternoon of June 12th. After a lot of preparation for the semester project and the election, all the awards were announced during the award ceremony and all the winning works had a chance to be shown to the audience. Four documentary films made by the 9th graders won awards including “most informative”, “best use of historical sources and references”, “best editing and presentation”, “best technical use and multi-media”, and “best overall documentary”. Five films made by the 10th graders won in categories including “best scenes and design”, “best costumes and dress”, “best editing and presentation”, “best acting” and “best overall film”. The students also voted for the best posters, which were awarded during the ceremony as well.

All the teachers and students had an opportunity to enjoy watching wonderful clips from the winning projects. These scenes also reminded the students of the enthusiasm and effort they devoted to choosing and researching a topic, as well as shooting and editing the video. This year the themes of the videos were various and the techniques the students used for making videos seemed improved.

History Day was also showtime for the historical play on refugees in Shanghai, an interdisciplinary project which was launched in the beginning of the semester and rehearsed with an enormous amount of time and energy. The play was divided into 5 parts and performed in the middle of the award ceremony. The drama instructor, Mr. Paul Deichmann, used 2 games to help the audience experience the charm of acting before the show. The whole play included 4 acts. Each one had its own leading character. These included a mother who tries to find a way to keep her family safe after Kristallnacht; a Shanghai philanthropist who tries to convince a wary foreign population to accept the refugees; a young refugee named Ernest; Laura Margolis, who addresses the staff of the JDC—a relief organization for the refugees about the developing situation in Shanghai; and a young woman whose family is still in Germany. The actors and actresses fully expressed the emotions of the Jewish people during WWII: their worries of future and their thirst for hope. Their excellent performances received warm applause and cheers from the audience.

Some students said that in the past few months, they had to write a script, film, edit, and make a movie poster. Throughout the preparation process, one can always discover new skills and learn more about the historical topic. When students were asked about their favorite documentaries, one student proclaimed: “I found the Opium War documentary to be my favorite. The setting was especially realistic, and the shots taken in an alleyway really felt like old Shanghai. The content was also very dramatized and engaging and you felt like you were watching an actual film.” The student added that they were all “enriching and educational”, as well as a “celebration of knowledge at the same time”. Many students and teachers also found many of the short monologues presented by the drama group interesting: Cathy Wang from grade 9 said that “it was a new perspective” whereas Maggie from grade 10 expressed that “the Jewish Refugee Museum project is a way of exploring history from another medium—drama, rather than the lectures we are used to receiving, and I personally thought it worked really well and brought the still text in our history textbooks to life.” The plays were all described as “moving” and “a touching tribute to all the Jewish Refugees who found refuge in Shanghai during World War II”, while the positive response from audience members served as an acknowledgement to all the actors and actresses involved in the play.

History Day provided a good opportunity to encourage all the students to learn history in a more fun and effective way.

(Written by Zhou Shen, 9(5) Jessie Wang      Pictures by Sun Hao      Supervised by Xie Junyu)