The Paperclip Project: Talking to Young People About the Holocaust?

I was supposed to meet a Florida writing colleague, Pat Gould-Black, in Whitwell, TN, today but I could not make it. However, here is a recap of its astounding Paperclip Project:

In 1998, something amazing happened in the town of Whitwell, a small rural community of 1700 people nestled in the southeast Tennessee mountains. Whitwell, a once thriving mining town nestled in the Sequatchie Valley, is 24 miles from Chattanooga, Tennessee. 

Describing the town of Whitwell, “a city where kids who had never even heard of a Jewish person — let alone met someone Jewish — decided to take it upon themselves to do something to remember the Jewish people in such a moving and lasting way.”

Whitwell Middle School principal Linda Hooper prompted language arts teacher Sandra Roberts and associate principal David Smith to teach the school’s largely white and Christian students from low-income families about the Holocaust as the basis of a voluntary after-school program exploring the issues of hate and intolerance.

As the class struggled to grasp the massive scale of the Holocaust and the sheer numbers of the Jews who lost their lives, one student raised his hand with the question:Six million? The number was incomprehensible. How was it possible to understand?  Smith’s response was inspired: Why not collect something of historical significance to tangibly represent the six million – one for each life?  

Through internet research, the class discovered that collecting paper clips would offer a symbolic and profound dimension to the project, given that Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian Jew, invented the paper clip, and that Europeans wore paper clips on their lapels during World War II as a silent protest against the Nazi occupation.

Whitwell Middle School is as unlikely a place as any to have become the site of a world acclaimed Holocaust museum, let alone the recipient of one of the last remaining “cattle cars” of the Nazi era.

But the story of what happened in that small rural town has inspired millions around the world to share their stories of courage, survival and hope. While the goal was to collect six million paper clips – one for each soul who perished during the Shoah – the project attracted media attention and support worldwide. Letters and emails started to flood in with donations . . . more paper clips than anyone could have imagined.

Jewish notables, celebrities and survivors sent paper clips with notes, photos and family treasures in remembrance of loved ones. The “Paper Clips Project” extended over several years and, in 2001, the school dedicated a Children’s Holocaust Memorial, which includes an authentic German railcar—which is how Jewish victims were transported to the concentration camps—filled with six million of the more than 30 million paper clips they collected, along with over 30,000 letters that are available for viewing at the Memorial. 

A moving documentary, entitled Paper Clips and originally released theatrically in 2004,  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGnhilD9yGg captures how these students responded to lessons about the Holocaust and how a committed group of children and educators provided hope and inspiration to countless others around the globe.