One paperclip at a time

Children at a small Tennessee school find a unique way to honor Holocaust victims.

By TAYLOR INNES
paperclip (photo credit: courtesy)
paperclip
(photo credit: courtesy)
Whitwell is a rural Tennessee town northwest of Chattanooga. Once dependent on coal mining, the local economy crashed some 30 years ago. But the future looks bright for Whitwell because of its children, who for the past decade have been making their mark through a truly unique project that aims to teach the world a powerful lesson – one paperclip at a time.
Their story is captured in the award-winning documentary Paper Clips, produced in association with Miramax Films.
The town, with a population of 1,600 people, boasts little diversity, with its school having only one Hispanic student and five African Americans. But in 1998, Whitwell Middle School set out to learn about intolerance by studying the Holocaust through a simple afterschool project.
After learning that Hitler killed six million Jews, a group of 8th graders tried to understand what a number that big looked like. The students decided to collect a paper clip for each Jew who died in the Holocaust, after learning that a Norwegian Jew invented the paper clip, and Norwegians wore them on their lapels as a symbol of solidarity against Nazi occupation in World War II.
“When I heard about the project and was asked to help, I was so excited I couldn’t say ‘yes’ quick enough!” Sandra Roberts, an 8th grade teacher recalls in Paper Clips.
“We set out to teach our children that not everyone is white and Protestant and lives in a rural community. That is all we wanted to do! Just a nice simple thing,” said Linda Hooper, former principal of Whitwell Middle School.
The project began slowly, when the students mailed out letters requesting paperclips and responses came back explaining the reasons for those sending one in. Over several years, thousands of paperclips and letters were received from all over the world, including from Tom Hanks, Bill Cosby and former president George H. Bush and his son, George W.Bush. One jewelry designer in California sent a shipment of 100,000 paper clips. But the students still needed millions more to reach their goal.
“Every year the incoming 8th graders pick up where last year’s left off,” said Roberts.
“When the project first began, I was very prejudiced in many areas and was quick to judge all races. I was the typical Southern person – quick to judge and quick to stereotype,” said David Smith, former assistant principal at Whitwell Middle, who helped launch the project.
Toward the end of 1999, the project started to slow down, but Peter Schroeder and Dagmar Schroeder-Hildebrand, two journalists from Germany, helped revive it. They became so intrigued after hearing about the students’ initiative that they traveled to Whitwell to meet the youngsters and help bring in the remaining paperclips. They wrote about this life-changing project in Six Million Paper Clips: The Making of A Children’s Holocaust Memorial (Kar-Ben Publishing).
In the documentary, Peter Schroder reflects on his visit to Whitwell. “The children obviously had no idea what Germans look liked. They asked their teacher what Germans look like. How are they different from us? And then we came over and later they told us: ‘You look quite normal.’”
The Schroeders’ experience even drew interest from The Washington Post and NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw.
Within six weeks of the media coverage, over 24 million paper clips arrived in Whitwell.
Millions of paperclips and some 30,000 pieces of mail flooded the Whitwell post office from every continent and all 50 states. Students, teachers, friends and even grannies were needed to help count them all. The local postmaster was overwhelmed; deliveries were no longer an option, so tubs and hampers were provided.
Every address was hand recorded by the students and teachers, and the international stamps were saved. Many Holocaust survivors wrote their personal reflections and mailed in paper clips to remember loved ones who had perished. One classroom from Germany even sent letters in a suitcase asking for forgiveness from Anne Frank.
In the spring of 2001, a group of Holocaust survivors in New York were so moved by the project that they wanted to visit Whitwell and share their stories with the students. A local Methodist Church invited them to speak one night.
“When the first survivor came, I think it’s when it really hit home what we were teaching. We didn’t really understand until that point that this had actually happened, and this person had lived through it,” said Smith.
Many students and parents wept as the survivors shared their testimonies.
“They are my heroes because they have been through everything. I am going to take what they told me and pass it down to my children and grandchildren, and to my friends and family. So they will always remember that this horrible thing happened,” said Cassie Crabtree, an 8th grade student.
“They are learning from what we are teaching and they are teaching others. And that’s the whole point of this project – to teach their children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren,” added Smith.
The last hurdle was to figure out how to house the paperclips. Over dinner one night, the idea of getting an authentic German rail car to hold the paperclips as a permanent memorial grabbed Linda Hooper’s attention. The Schroeders promised her they would find one.
During the Schroeders’ search, everyone said it was not possible to find such a thing. But they drove to every rail yard in Germany and finally found a cattle car once used by the Nazi SS to transport Jews to concentration camps. Built in 1917 and in use by the Nazis until the end of the Second World War, its survival was a bit of a miracle.
The cattle car was shipped by the German Navy to Baltimore on September 9, 2001 and was dedicated on the anniversary of Kristallnacht on November 9 that year in Whitwell with over 1,000 in attendance. The car was paid for by donations from German citizens, including the Schroeders.
“This community is going to have a piece of living history like no other communities have. Nobody else has a piece of history like we have here,” said Hooper.
“This car will not transport people anymore. This car will be a symbol,” added Peter Schroeder. “Symbols make us think. Symbols can change the world, and sometimes symbols are all we have to help us maintain our resolve; even on our darkest and most tragic days.”
Roberts said that if the car could speak, it would say: “You are paying homage to people who suffered simply because of what they believed, and because of hatred and ignorance. This is not only about mourning their loss but celebrating their lives.”
While looking at the rail car one day, Hooper thought to herself that, “from now on you will not be an instrument of pain. Your history as a death car is erased and now you are a car of new life. And you are going to stand here and say there is good in this world.”
Today, the railcar is surrounded by a park containing 18 butterfly sculptures (the number 18 in Hebrew symbolizes chai, or life). The idea for the butterflies came when it was learned that a young person from Poland in the Terezin concentration camp wrote a poem that said, “I may never live to see another butterfly.”
There is also a monument honoring the children of Terezin, and over 30,000 documents, including a collection of Holocaust books and other artifacts housed in the school library.
Over 29 million paperclips were eventually received and 11 million were put into the car. Six million represent the Jews who were murdered, and five million stand for the homosexuals, gypsies and Jehovah Witnesses killed by Hitler’s regime.
In Whitwell today, all the students who participated in the paper clip project have graduated, but a part of their hearts will always stay behind. It is a children’s Holocaust memorial with a message reaching the ends of the earth.
You can learn more about the Whitwell Middle School and its Children's Holocaust Memorial and Visitors Center at www.paperclipproject.org