The winner of the 2024 Holocaust Educator of the Year Award is Penny Selle, a visual arts, theology, and Holocaust studies teacher at Notre Dame de Sion Upper School in Kansas City, MO. Penny was recognized at the annual Academic Awards Ceremony on May 7, 2024 where she received an award of $500.

Jessica Rockhold, MCHE’s Executive Director, introduced Penny with these words:
“Over the course of her career, Penny has shown impressive dedication to furthering her own knowledge about the Holocaust and has demonstrated an outstanding level of engagement with MCHE programming and professional development sustained over many years. She comes from a school that is deeply committed to Holocaust education and has developed a remarkable relationship with one of our local survivors. Even in that environment, Penny is a standout who works to elevate the level of teaching and ensure that Holocaust education remains vital in the school. She encourages her students to apply the lessons of the Holocaust to their lives and develop their own moral compass.”

Penny’s acceptance speech included a brief history of Notre Dame de Sion (Our Lady of Zion) – a religious order founded in the 19th century by two French brothers who converted from Judaism. From its start, the order has focused on social justice and developing interfaith understanding.

Toward the conclusion of her remarks, Penny shared this:
“I start each semester telling my students that I came by my interest in Holocaust Studies quite naturally. A journalism major after returning from World War II, my father read everything he could get his hands on about the Holocaust. Though he was stationed in the Pacific, his brother, my Uncle Tom, was a paratrooper in Europe. When young Tom came home and recounted the stories he had heard from soldiers during liberation of the camps, the people in their small home town of Beloit, in north central Kansas, could not believe what they were hearing. How could such atrocities happen? It wasn’t until I got to undergrad that I learned not EVERYONE talks about Himmler, Goebbels & Hitler – Buchenwald, Bergen Belsen and Dachau – at the dinner table! Who knew?”

If you would like to read the full text of Penny’s speech, you may do so using the button below.