Paperclips: Don't Forget the Past

Today in E325 we watched a movie. When Sydney first put the movie in, I wasn't thinking about the way it would change my outlook on something so simple, so innocent as a paperclip. I mean its just a paperclip I've used them a thousand times and never really thought about it; there's one in my assignment notebook, to hold my place. I never imagined they could mean so much to so many different people. The movie was Paper Clips and the lesson was one I will never forget.

It was just a school in a small town and the teacher wanted to teach about the Holocaust. It was a lesson the students would never forget.

It all started with a question. How much is 6 million? (That's the number of Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust) The teacher decided to collect 6 million of something to show the students what that looked like. The students did some research and found out that people who protested what Hitler was doing wore a paperclip in support of the Jews, and so the choice was made. The students would collect 6 million paper clips in honor of those who died during Hitler's reign. So the students began to collect the paper clips, unaware of where this would lead. They sent letters asking for people to send them paper clips and the public responded. People from all over the world sent paper clips to the school with letters and stories. The 6 million paper clips were collected and still more kept coming. The 6 million mark had been reached and passed, but it didn't end there.

Holocaust survivors heard about what the students were doing and came to the school to show their support. These survivors shared their stories about what happened to them. The stories were heartbreaking and contained horrors no one would wish on their worst enemies. The students were offered a look into what it was like to be held in a concentration camp. They were able to see the smallest part of what that waking nightmare must have been like. The stories touched the principal so much she came up with an elaborate idea.

She wanted to take the paper clips and make a memorial to honor and remember those who lost their lives in the concentration camps. So the hunt began for a railcar from the time period. The search was long and spanned the entire country of Germany. Finally, a railcar was found and brought overseas to the US. It was filled with 11 million paperclips to represent the 6 million Jews who died and the other 5 million represented the gypsies, lesbians, gays, and others who were also hunted down.

Months of labor went into the making of the memorial. The real work wasn't in the making of the memorial or in the collecting of the paper clips. It was in the changes that were made in the lives of the students, the teachers and the community. It was the teaching of tolerance, the stories shared along the way, and the lives that were changed.


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