TOW #28 Paperclips

Paperclips tells the story of how a small town in Tennessee became the home to a large holocaust remembrance project. The principle of Whitwell Middle School narrates the story of the transformation of this school. This middle school is home to a homogenous population of white protestant students. The school only has four African Americans and one Hispanic. Although the town is currently in a state of depression, the people still continue to have a happy and friendly manner. The students have grown up never knowing diversity and living a very culturally sheltered life. One teacher attended a conference in order to learn about new projects to offer his students. There, he was inspired to teach about the Holocaust, and this was the beginning of what has now become the Paperclips Project. When teaching a class about the horrors of how six million people perished in the holocaust, the school faced a challenge of portraying to small town children such a large number. Because of their symbolic meaning and origin, the students collected paperclips in order to commemorate the six million Jews lost in the Holocaust. 

The goal for teaching about the holocaust was for the students to learn tolerance. The teachers wanted their students to understand that stereotyping is wrong and to see the effects through the history of the Holocaust. This message that the teachers wanted the students to understand is given throughout the entire film so that they audience can too. With each new person interview in the movie, he or she begins their clip with how stereotypes have affected their life or beliefs. These range from what they imagined a southern school to be like or even what they assumed a German or Jew to look like. Through time spent with the children on the project and a visit at the school all people involved become enlightened on how all people are really the same. Watching others come to these realizations helps the audience learn the lesson as well.

To continue this extremely important message, the documentary highlights a special shipment of paperclips received by the school. A suitcase was received from Germany that held around fifteen paperclips each with a note attached. After the notes were all translated the principal came to share the amazing package with the class. The notes all were written by students in Germany writing to Anne Frank apologizing for what had happened in the country’s past. The movie shows one note in particular that gets read aloud to the class. This note finishes, “Regardless of who we are or what we are, people are people.” This quote is then discussed other times during the film as everyone found it such an impactful meaning to the Paperclip Project.