
The 'Dora Love Prize', named after Holocaust survivor and educator Dora Rabinowitz Love, is an annual school prize that was created in 2012 in memory of Dora Love who worked to raise awareness about the Holocaust. This year marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp complex. 80 years ago, soldiers opened the gates of Auschwitz Concentration Camp and brought freedom to the prisoners of Nazi occupation.
The Prize was originally administered by the University of Essex but has since been expanded to universities around the UK to help foster diversity, equality and inclusion by engaging school students in public-facing projects. This is the first time a 'Dora Love Prize' event has taken place outside of East Anglia.
The aim of the Prize is to inspire students to:
- Learn from the past: Using history to understand the present and create a better future for all.
- Encourage active citizenship: Cultivating responsibility and responsiveness in students to tackle discrimination and promote equality.
- Inspire action: Empowering young people to believe in their ability to make a difference.

To begin proceedings, BU hosted a launch event on Thursday 30 January on Talbot Campus and invited groups of students from three local schools (Years 8 to 10) to attend the series of talks and interactive workshops designed to teach pupils about Jewish resistance, both Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. The talks also highlighted the historical and contemporary discrimination against social groups such as Gypsies, Roma and Travellers. Organised by staff on BU’s BA (Hons) History course, it included a keynote by Hanna White, daughter of the Holocaust survivor and artist Yehuda Bacon; an interactive session by Oak Academy’s Sara Sinaguglia who has trained in Holocaust education at University College London; PhD candidate in Jewish heritage Anoushka Alexander-Rose, whose grandfather was a Kindertransport evacuee, and local author Becca Perl, whose children’s book 'Don’t Look Back' tells the remarkable story of her family’s escape from the Soviet regime in Czechoslovakia after World War II.
Following this first event, students then have five months to work on their project before presenting it to a panel of judges. Prizes awarded for successful creative projects developed by schools in the past have included a boardgame that teaches players the consequences of intolerance and a social media campaign that raises awareness of discrimination and promotes inclusion.
At the introductory event, Founder of the 'Dora Love Prize', Professor Rainer Schulze was invited on stage to make an introductory talk, followed by Hanna White who gave an account of her father, a Holocaust survivor. Ieuan Franklin, Senior Lecturer in History and Politics, who co-ordinated the day’s activities said: “Second and third generations act as custodians of these stories, keeping the history alive. Hanna White’s keynote presentation also brought into focus not only the unbearably traumatic experience of Auschwitz borne by her father, the Artist, Yehuda Bacon, but also the role of art in documenting atrocities.”
Sara Sinaguglia, Assistant Vice Principle at Oak Academy, one of the schools who attended the event said: “As a Beacon School for Holocaust Education, it is a brilliant opportunity for pupils at Oak Academy, who are raising awareness of genocide as part of their ‘Standing with Others’ project in partnership with Hampton School in Middlesex to explore ways in which they can share the stories of communities subjected to discrimination.”

BU Student Ambassadors were also on hand on the day to guide students through a series of workshops that took place including:
- An interactive history session.
- A human library workshop where students could interact with volunteers and hear about their stories and ask them questions of their own.
- The Story Works workshop, where students were mentored in principles of literacy and visual storytelling relating to overcoming discrimination and marginalisation. They received illustrated copies of their work on the day to take back with them.
Lynda Ford-Horne, Chair of the Bournemouth and Poole Holocaust Memorial Day Committee, who also attended the event said: “I have been involved in Holocaust education for a long time and the 'Dora Love Prize' seems the ideal way to help young people learn from the past to ensure that ‘never again’ means never again. Education is the key to making the world a better place, and listening to the student sin the sessions today, I am sure that they will be able to make a difference.”
The event concluded with advice to students about developing their own projects over the course of five months, before presenting them to a panel of judges in May 2025.
For further information about the BA (Hons) History course, part of the Faculty of Media & Communication, please visit the BU website.