“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”—George Santayana 

I am in Whitwell TN as you read this (edited) article from The Tennessean,
dated 7 months ago 

The Tennessean Feb 10 2022
Kevin Brown Guest Columnist

In recent months, books like ‘Maus’ and ‘Walk Two Moons’ have been removed from student curriculum to the detriment of student learners.

A generation after Paper Clips Project on Holocaust education, we are regressing. | 

Almost 25 years ago (1998), Whitwell Middle School Principal Linda Hooper thought her students needed to learn more about diversity and tolerance. She asked Sandra Roberts, a language arts teacher, and associate principal David Smith to begin a Holocaust education class.

Students and parents voluntarily signed up for the class. A very small, (pop. About 1600, 97% white) rural community in Tennessee actively sought to study a time in history that was challenging and uncomfortable. The class led to the Paper Clips Project, which led to the Children’s Holocaust Memorial, an authentic German railcar filled with more than 30 million paper clips those students collected.

Why did they commemorate the Holocaust with paper clips?

Students were struggling to understand the vast number of people the Nazis killed during their genocide. What is a million let alone six? The community rallied and encouraged them to work through the subject, not avoid it. The students chose paper clips because they learned that the paperclip was invented in Norway (by Johan Vaaler). Norwegians wore them on their lapels as a form of silent resistance when they were occupied by Nazi Germany. That railcar filled with paper clips still sits at the middle school, just beside the elementary and high school, so students continue to see it and remember what happened.

Studying this history made us more knowledgeable, empathetic

Those Whitwell students are old enough now to have children of their own. They would be the parents who voluntarily send their children to learn about a subject that involves descriptions of horrific events, often accompanied by pictures of emaciated corpses. They work through those emotions because the school, parents, and ultimately the students believed that studying such history makes them not only more knowledgeable, but more empathetic. 

They also believed that it makes such events less likely to occur in the future.

But look where we are now.