The recently released documentary, Paperclips, provides another compelling Holocaust project that seeks to create a legacy of tolerance through examination of the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews, including some 1.5 million children below the age of six.

 

My hope is that other communities will embark upon novel efforts to highlight our on-going need to combat worldwide population misery. That is, this project demonstrated that ordinary people could make extraordinary accomplishments.
 

Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee is the setting for this documentary. In order to grasp the concept of six million Holocaust victims, the students decided to collect six million paper clips in order to better understand the extent of this crime against humanity. 

 

Whitwell Tennessee appears to be an unlikely location for such an ambitious project. This small rural town has no Catholics, Jews, and just a few Blacks. Moreover, it is located near the town where the Ku Klux Klan was founded and a town where the Scopes trial, the trial of a teacher for educating his students about evolution, took place. The success, therefore, of this project reflects the sunshine of human rights that permeates most of this country. That is, the civil rights revolution has penetrated this former citadel of parochialism.

 

The significance of paper clips stems from the wearing of paperclips by Norwegians during World War II. That is, because the Nazis threatened to kill all Norwegians who wore the Star of David, the Norwegians wore paper clips as a symbol of their solidarity with their Jewish fellow citizens.

The task of assembling six million paper clips was a formidable challenge. Over the course of this project, many unlikely people compelled by the power of this idea, provided meaningful help in expanding the project’s scope and therefore its vision. Thus, the power of this idea dramatically changed not only this community but also even a broader worldwide audience.

For example, an enterprising husband and wife team formerly from Germany lent considerable time, creativity, and effort. Through their public relations efforts, reputable news organizations such as the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Evening News programs featured the paperclips story.

The publicity brought worldwide attention to this project. Children from Germany sent paperclips addressed to “Anne Frank,” asking her forgiveness. Several holocaust survivors visited the town relating their experiences. An American soldier sent a paperclip in memory of a woman he met at a concentration camp shortly before she died. He related that until sending the paperclip to commemorate the life of this holocaust victim he had not publicly disclosed this meaningful chapter in his life. 

 

Lastly, the German couple felt that retrieving a boxcar that had carried Holocaust victims should be found and brought to the town. After traveling some 3000 miles around Germany they located this car of death and arranged for its transportation to Whitwell, Tennessee. Flowers and descriptions befitting the dignity of its victims now surround the boxcar.

I was moved by the religious faith of the Whitwell town people. In a symbolic sense, each paper clip took on the identity of a human being who possessed a soul. 

 

I personally feel that each holocaust memorial provides a meaningful, but belated attempt to provide dignity to the human lives extinguished under the most deranged and degrading circumstances. 

Thus, I encourage other projects that enhance human understanding and tolerance. That is, I hope that the Whitwell project can inspire other schools and communities to reach out to the disadvantaged of every generation and give a human face to their hardships