Paper Clips

April 25 was Yom Hashoah which is a day dedicated to remembering the victims of the holocaust and honoring the survivors.

In honor of the day, I saw an emotional movie that I will never forget. It is titled "Paper Clips." This real-life documentary was shown on HBO this week and is also available on DVD. It began as a lesson about prejudice. What happened next was a miracle. Because the movie is about middle school children, it is a perfect venue for teaching the Holocaust to children. Check out the details on line. Truly amazing.

This is copied from the movie website:

Whitwell, TN is a small, rural community of less than two thousand people nestled in the mountains of Tennessee. Its citizens are almost exclusively white and Christian. In 1998, the children of Whitwell Middle School took on an inspiring project, launched out of their principal's desire to help her students open their eyes to the diversity of the world beyond their insulated valley. What happened would change the students, their teachers, their families and the entire town forever… and eventually open hearts and minds around the world.

PAPER CLIPS is the moving and inspiring documentary film that captures how these students responded to lessons about the Holocaust-with a promise to honor every lost soul by collecting one paper clip for each individual exterminated by the Nazis. Despite the fact that they had previously been unaware of and unfamiliar with the Holocaust, their dedication was absolute. Their plan was simple but profound. The amazing result, a memorial railcar filled with 11 million paper clips (representing 6 million Jews and 5 million gypsies, homosexuals and other victims of the Holocaust) which stands permanently in their schoolyard, is an unforgettable lesson of how a committed group of children and educators can change the world one classroom at a time.