Warning: May Contain Spoilers
While watching this documentary, I had a feeling that I have already seen this, though I don't know when or where that would have occurred. This is a great feel to share with students in high school or middle to share that just because people are unaware of something doesn't make them not care or ignorant. Overall this an inspirational documentary that should be shared with students and teachers alike.
In 1998, something amazing happened in the town of
Whitwell, a small rural community of fewer than 2,000 people nestled in the
mountains of Tennessee.
Whitwell Middle School
principal Linda Hooper asked language arts teacher Sandra Roberts and associate
principal David Smith to begin a Holocaust education class that would be the
basis for teaching tolerance and diversity in a voluntary after-school program.
When the students, mostly white and Christian, struggled to grasp the concept
and enormity of the six million Jews who died during the Holocaust, they
decided to collect six million paper clips – one for each soul who perished.
Why paper clips? The students’ research found that
Norwegians wore paper clips as a silent protest and symbol of resistance
against Nazi occupation during World War II. It was this simple idea that
eventually, and quite unintentionally, turned into a worldwide phenomenon,
drawing international media attention and letters of support from literally
every continent.
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 filled with a portion of the more than 30 million
paper clips they eventually collected. A moving documentary, entitled Paper Clips and
originally released theatrically in 2004, 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.
Cited from http://oneclipatatime.org/paper-clips-project/
You can watch this for free on Hulu.
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