Paper Clips

To the students of the Whitwell Middle School.

I recently learned from a friend about your paper clip project.

I was so moved by the story that I found myself in tears.

You've embarked on a journey that begins in the brain, but ends in the heart.

Six million Jews will never again dance, love, sing or learn,

but the souls of six million Jews will be honoured, remembered and treasured

because of your little school in Whitwell, Tennessee,

and the tolerance and love that live there.

'My name is Linda Hooper.

'I've lived here, in Whitwell, Tennessee, all my life,

'and I've been the principal of the middle school for nine years.'

A lot of people have said that our little town

is an unlikely place for what happened.

I guess I can understand that.

Probably, most people, if they drove into Whitwell,

would not be terribly impressed.

It's a very rural town, about 24 miles northwest of Chattanooga.

It's got just two traffic lights...

..several gas stations

and a couple of restaurants.

'Whitwell used to be a coal mining community,

'and then about 30 years ago, we had a really bad accident,

'and the coal mining industry just went bust.

'So now, we're what's called a depressed community.'

But let me tell you something, we're not depressed -

we're poor, we're extremely poor.

But let me tell you about our children.

We have wonderful children.

They're respectful,

they are thoughtful,

they are caring,

but they are pretty much homogenous.

We are a community of 1,600 people.

However, we really have no diversity.

There are no Jewish people,

no Catholics,

and in our school, we have only five black kids

and one Hispanic child.

We are all alike.

And when we come up to someone who is not like us, we don't have a clue.

So, in 1998, we began an adventure.

It was no great mission.

It was a need, our need.

'We were looking to do a project that would involve tolerance and diversity.

So Miss Hooper sent me to a conference in Chattanooga,

and I went to this conference and went to many classes

to find a project that would fit our need.

So he came back to me, and he said, "You know, if we studied about

"the Holocaust, think about all the things we could learn.

"We could surely learn about evil.

"And we would definitely learn about a culture that was totally different from our own."

And so I went and asked Sandra Roberts,

who is the 8th grade Language Arts teacher, if she would like to help.

When I heard about the project, I was so excited.

'I couldn't say yes quick enough.'

We sat down and we decided that our goal was to teach children

what happens when intolerance reigns and when prejudice goes unchecked.

So that's what we set out to do - to teach our children that not everybody is white and Protestant

and doesn't live in a rural community where they are very protected and loved and cared for.

That's all we wanted to do, just a nice, simple thing.

The important thing is the lessons you'll learn from this project.

How important it is to treat everybody

exactly like you want to be treated.

Let's talk a little bit about what's going to happen today.

The first year, which was in '98, I believe, there was just the Holocaust project.

The teachers didn't know a lot,

but they were trying to teach the kids what they did know.

They read books and they watched video clips, saw pictures.

And they just tried their best to do what they can.

But I want to remind you before we start

that what we're going to cover in this project is very, very graphic.

'Of course, one of the first things that the kids had to learn

'and one of the hardest things for them to comprehend

'was that Hitler murdered six million Jewish people.'

The idea for the paper clips came when a student said, "What is six million?

"I've never seen six million."

Miss Hooper's like, "Well, neither have I.

"If you can find something to collect, we'll try it."

So the students began doing some research on the internet

and they discovered that the paper clip was invented in Norway.

I never knew that. And they also learned that

the Norwegians used the paper clip as a symbol during the Holocaust.

Back in the 1940s, Norwegians wore paper clips on their collar

to represent the people who were in the Holocaust at that time.

The Jews had to wear stars telling people that they were Jews,

so the Norwegians wore the paper clip to represent what the wrong-doing was.

Because if they spoke out about it, they would probably get killed or put in a concentration camp.

And they came and they said, "Can we write some letters to some people we know

"and to some other schools and to some famous people, and see if they'll send us some paper clips?"

Miss Hooper said, "Sure."

So, we began sending letters out.

We have some from Tom Hanks and from Bill Cosby

and from former President Bush and former President Clinton

and President Bush.

"Dear students, celebrities don't always read their fan mail,

"as they think it's time-consuming. And though I, too, am guilty

"of not reading everything that crosses my desk,

"I was certainly glad that I read yours.

"I have a very difficult time explaining to any of my seven grandchildren

"what the Holocaust was all about.

"I am a Jew.

"The whole depravity of what happened in the concentration camps

"really struck home when I saw pictures

"of the atrocities perpetrated on the Jewish people.

"Those pictures are still very much alive in my memories.

"I'm sending you one paper clip.

"It is my paper clip.

"In the future, I will remember your project with every paper clip I come in contact with,

"as it will be a symbol of what you students are trying to accomplish.

"I am moved by your endeavours.

"Bless you. Tom Bosley."

I mean, if this is a middle school, we're talking about 8th graders, I guess.

Propaganda has absolutely nothing to do with the truth.

And the stimulation that they're getting from their teachers

is really...everyone there should be commended for what they've done.

When I came in here, I didn't really know a lot about it, so it just felt

good to be a part of something big and learn more about the Holocaust.

Every year, the incoming 8th graders pick up where last year's left off.

One of the really motivating things for David and me

is seeing the thoughtfulness each new group brings to the project.

Terri Lynn, sitting there all nice and still. Why did you want to be a part of this?

I know that your afternoons are very full with cheerleading

and other things you do, and this will take a huge commitment.

I wanted to do this because I think that this would help everybody stop

and make sure they know somebody before they start

thinking and saying, and I know that I do that, and I think this group would really help me.

Very good.

'When I started this project, the person I was is not the person I am now.'

It's what you do with that charisma.

I was a new teacher, still trying to further her career and figure out

my teaching styles and what worked best for me, not necessarily what worked best for the children.

'I think you get so engrossed in what you can do

'to further your career, and it becomes about you.'

Rumours. We all know what they are.

We all probably have been subject to one or two in our life.

Does that make a difference in they way people think about you and think about me?

Oh, yeah, it does.

'When the project first began, I was very prejudiced in many areas

'and was very quick to judge all races.'

I was the typical Southern person, quick to judge and quick to stereotype.

'As a teacher, I guess I'd listened to what everyone had said about kids that age

'and pretty much had stereotyped children, you know, in my classes.'

I wouldn't take input from them. I would tell them what I wanted them to know, and that was it.

You're going to come up with some really cool posters.

'These children really wanted to understand the magnitude of the Holocaust.

'That's why the second group in the fall of 1999 added the Paper Clip project to their weekly meetings.

'And with letters and paper clips coming in, it seemed to be catching on.'

We first got a shipment of 100,000 paper clips.

They were very excited, and they thought they were off to a booming start.

We received that in one large shipment from a gentleman in California, a jewellery designer.

He called and he was all excited, so, for a couple of weeks there, we were real excited.

"Oh, we got 100,000, this is going very quickly."

8,830.

And then we got into a huge lull where we would go weeks and receive two letters.

And it's really hard to keep your optimism up, your enthusiasm up,

and to keep up the enthusiasm of 27 kids.

And we were just fiddling with some numbers, trying to determine

how long it would take us to get to six million at the current rate.

And it was gonna take us 10 years,

and we just both shook our heads. We knew we didn't have that much in us.

Sandy and I sat and looked at each other, and we said, "Well, if we can collect 1.5 million for the children

"that were killed, you know, we'll probably be doing pretty good."

Towards the end of 1999, I guess the project could have gone either way.

But no-one was ready to give up on it just yet.

Fortunately, that's when Peter and Dagmar Schroeder came in.

-Alcohol, how is it called?

-Oh, moonshining. Moonshining. Yeah.

-Yes.

Oh, gosh. How do you describe Peter and Dagmar Schroeder?

It's only a beginning now.

They contacted us in October of '99.

And the letter read,

their friend, who was a 94-year-old Holocaust survivor named Lena Gitter,

had found our project on the internet.

And she said, "This is your assignment."

We both are journalists,

and we are here in the United States for 20 years.

We are White House correspondents.

Yes, Whitwell High.

And on the side, we try to get a feel for this country.

-Is this where they have the football?

-Yeah.

-"Go, Tigers, Go Tigers."

-Yeah.

As journalists, you always have this negative stuff you write about.

And then if you're getting older, like us,

then it's the danger that you get cynical.

And that you don't believe in good stuff anymore.

In the beginning, there was not much of the paper clips.

They just had started to collect them.

We saw then, OK, we have to help the kids, and that we can do that

and the Germans should be involved.

And we were talking to some people at the school and we asked, "Can we come over? Can we visit you?"

They said, "Sure."

Maybe it was not only an experience for us, it was an experience for the children, too.

Because the children obviously had no idea what Germans looked like.

They asked their teacher, "How do Germans look like?

"Are they different from us?"

And then we came over and later they told us, "You look quite normal."

We lost our professionality right away when we saw the kids.

How can you be professional, when strange kids of 13 or 14

or 15 years old, you have never seen in your life, hug you

and greet you like an old friend? You can't.

Little Tiger. You are number one. Give me five. Could you do that?

Ooh! That's a little bit hard.

They came...

They saw...

They wrote.

They went back to Washington.

They sent Dita Smith with the Washington Post to our school.

I did a little research on the town and the area and realized that

Dayton, Tennessee is only about 30 or 40 miles to the north,

where the famous Monkey Trial took place, otherwise known as the Scopes Trial,

where a teacher was tried for teaching Darwinian theories

rather than Christian theory of Creationism.

The other historical fact I discovered when I was in Whitwell

was that the Ku Klux Klan was founded only about 100 miles away, in Pulaski.

Maybe when I got to Whitwell, I was a little bit prejudiced myself.

I expected a town that was close-minded, very Christian, very fundamentalist.

But I realized that in itself was my prejudice, not their prejudice.

After I went to Whitwell, I wrote my story

and it appeared on Passover Day.

From NBC News World Headquarters in New York, this is NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw.

The Holocaust. The cold, calculated extermination of millions of Jews.

A great evil that must never be forgotten.

From a corner of Tennessee tonight, perhaps this generation is teaching us.

Well, it really started getting big whenever, like, the Washington Post came down,

and then NBC came, and then people just started...

the paper clips just started coming in by the millions.

11,390.

Before the Washington Post came, we probably had 150,000 paper clips.

30, 31, 32.

-How many in that box?

-152,290.

Over a period of six weeks, we ended up with 24 million paper clips.

And we counted them all.

The grannies counted them.

'The aunts counted them.'

It's heavy, so be careful.

Everybody was counting.

We checked in over 24 million paper clips.

'And about 25,000 pieces of mail.'

At first, when it went from maybe a tub or so,

which our regular mail carrier would take in his car every day,

it got to the point where we had hampers full,

and he couldn't load those hampers with the rest of his mail.

'So we had to call the middle school and inform them something's going on over here.

'Instead of us delivering your mail, you have to come to us to pick it up.'

Got something for you here from Germany, this suitcase right here.

That came in this morning.

-Looks old, too.

-Yeah, it does look vintage, doesn't it?

-I see a paper clip hanging out the back.

-There it is, right there.

That's wonderful, thanks. I appreciate it.

-All right, man, we'll see you later. Have a good day.

-You, too.

-OK.

It's sorted in two different crates - Alabama through Montana and then Nebraska through Wyoming.

Foreign mail is all held in a separate crate.

They take every letter out.

They empty the paper clips out.

Once you get it sorted, then you sort it again by individual states.

And then they will grab a bundle, go pull the log where they hand-record every address.

And they love the stamps.

They'll scrape the stamps off the envelopes and keep them,

because they come from Spain, Germany, New Zealand and England.

Every piece of paper, regardless of size, is kept.

It's put in a plastic sleeve and stored in a notebook.

We are averaging filling up a three-inch binder every two days.

There was a time when we were just flooded with paper clips,

and I began I to think, "My word, what have I unleashed here?"

'It's like you're in a flood and you're trying to stop it,

'and yet you don't want it to stop, because coming with the flood

-'are all these important lessons.'

-It's in German.

-They're all addressed to Anne.

-This is Anne Frank. This is awesome.

They've written little things to Anne Frank.

Somebody is interested enough in what we're doing to take this kind of time.

I think it's amazing enough that they even know about it. You know?

There are people in Chattanooga, Tennessee who don't know where Whitwell, Tennessee is!

That's absolutely true.

'Most people are good, you know, like Anne Frank said in her diary.

'You know, people at heart are good.

'And when they see something like this happening that is good,

'they wanna be a part of it.

'You know, the majority of people want to see things get better and

'they want to see children in a good light instead of in a bad light.'

This class in Germany has gotten a suitcase,

and they have packed it with messages.

Basically, they're all kind of asking for forgiveness from Anne Frank.

Now, I think everybody in here has either seen or read The Diary Of Anne Frank.

The gist of most of the messages is what this translation says.

"Dear Anne, you were brave and courageous.

"I think it is not good what Hitler did to the Jews.

"Regardless of who we are or what we are,

"people are people."

I believe people from the North and the West,

when they look at children in the South, they think,

"Dumb little redneck children."

They're stereotyped and that's what we're trying to teach in this project.

You can't stereotype anyone, because you yourself are stereotyped.

I am stereotyped, because I live in the South.

And I look at people that live in the North and I have a bad habit of doing it, I stereotype them.

And that's what we're trying to do,

is break those stereotypes.

Listen to this letter.

"Shalom. I read on the internet about your assignment

"and was very moved by the idea of collecting six million paper clips in the memory of the six million.

"I look forward to seeing pictures of the completed project.

"The attached paper clip is in memory of a friend of my grandfather, whose name is forgotten and grave unknown."

I think that it's beautiful that they don't know his name and they don't know where his grave is, and...

But I think it's good that they're sending a paper clip in remembrance of him.

Reading the letters,

it's like you get to know people that aren't here anymore.

And I'm thinking about all the people, one by one,

that they each had families and they each were brothers or sisters, and they were daughters and sons.

I think for our children,

it was like an ice water bath when the letters began to come.

As one of the kids said to me, "Do you realize that there are

"people in this world who never knew their grandparents?"

I don't think it had ever occurred to them that there were people in this world

who had nobody to care about them and who didn't have families.

"Dear students, I am a daughter of two Holocaust survivors.

"I am so proud of what you're doing

"in memory of all who perished during the Holocaust.

"My parents, Kalmon and Louisa Gluck, survived many horrors

"during their internment under the Nazi regime.

"Many members of both my mother's and father's families died at the camps.

"I have enclosed 14 paper clips for four grandparents, a brother,

"seven aunts and uncles, and two cousins.

"I wish you the best of luck on your wonderful project.

"Sincerely, Mrs Sheila Gluck Levine."

I grew up a child who had no grandparents when others had them.

All I wanted was people.

I wanted them, and I never had them.

In front of me, I have a prayer book that my father took through the camps with him.

It was given to him by a man who was being gassed, and the man asked him,

if he survived the camps, that he should take it with him.

And this is something that has survived

since my father was liberated in 1945 and has been in our family.

When my father passed away, everyone got to feel where my father

held this prayer book and how tightly it must have been held.

I thank you so much for giving another way to say, "I remember him,

"I remember my mother,

"the times in the camps,

"and I also remember those we lost."

Thank you.

Comes along the Spring of 2001,

the Greater Five Towns Holocaust Survivor Group in New York called us.

It seems that somehow, they'd heard about the project.

And they wanted to know if they could come to Whitwell

and share their survivor stories with our children.

And the evening before they spoke to the children at the school,

they were invited to the First United Methodist Church for the whole town to meet them.

They don't know what Whitwell is, and, you know,

they're coming from this huge urban area and they're a little self-conscious or nervous about it.

You don't need to be nervous here. We're just home folk.

And we're just glad to have 'em here.

My name is Joe. I'm a survivor.

I was in Auschwitz for three years.

I've got a number, the number is 124105.

And I'm glad that I can come and talk to you nice people. Thank you.

I want to remind our members here that our guests should be the first ones to go through the line tonight.

And let's have a moment of blessing together.

Our Father, we thank you especially for our guests this evening.

We ask your special blessings on this food.

Good evening. Wherever hatred and prejudice will,

it will find a wedge and a way into our lives.

But because of what these young people are doing,

we are understanding that there is another way, and that is the way of love.

And we can reach out and embrace all people.

First thing I want to say, I wish the whole world was like you are.

I was born in Poland. My name is Bernard Igielski.

'When the first survivor came,

'I think is when it really hit home, what we were teaching.'

We as Jews were singled out, put in a ghetto,

had to wear a star.

'And they spoke and gave us a real-life face to a story.'

I said, when I stood in Auschwitz

and I'm seeing that big chimney smoking day and night...

'And we didn't really understand until that point

'that what we were teaching, you know, wasn't just book learning.

'This actually happened and this person lived through it.'

And instead of being afraid, shielding your children,

prepare them, prepare them for the real world.

Yes, there are not nice things out there, but if they will be prepared,

they will be able to do the right thing.

Thank you.

APPLAUSE

Future generations will have to learn about the Holocaust

from the textbooks.

We are the eyewitnesses that can, to a certain degree,

tell you what took place.

I was born in a small town in Poland.

'The one who stood out for me was Sam.

'He was like a grandfather, a great-grandfather.'

He just, when he...

he'd look at you, and he'd just make you feel all warm and loving inside toward him.

I was with my brother.

My brother was three years older than I am.

But I had no idea...

'When they first arrived to Auschwitz, Sam and his brother and his mother and his little brother

'met up with the doctor, Mengele.

'He was the one who chose left or right.

'And he sent his mother and little brother left,

'and he sent Sam and his brother right.'

And so, Sam did not know what had happened.

And after they had went through the showers,

Sam found a guard and asked him.

And I asked him.

I said, "Please tell me.

"We arrived last night,

"and I arrived with my mother

"and my brother. Where are they?

"What happened to them?"

And that man shows me smoke coming out of a chimney.

I did not understand what that means.

Until I found out that the chimney is from a crematorium.

'I was thinking what it would have been like

'if that was me in his place

'and my family and my brothers and my mom.

'I was just thinking how horrible that would have been.'

And I'll never know what he went through.

And I only pray to God that my brother should not

have been sent to such a place, because he would not survive.

To actually see someone who had been through the things that I read about,

that was really hard.

But, I just, as a mother, I kept trying to imagine

what that would be like.

To have my kids taken away from me like that

or, I mean, just not to know where they were.

'I think that struck me about as hard as anything.'

I will tell you one thing. Every one survivor got a story.

There's not enough paper in the whole world, and not enough pens

to write down what these survivors went through. Thank you.

APPLAUSE

This is a loving community.

And I look at it as...

There's no place in the world that this would have been any more appropriate to start.

Cos this Holocaust project is a project about love and tolerance.

And what better place to start than Whitwell, Tennessee?

Please stand for the National Anthem.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America

and to the Republic for which it stands,

one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

This is our monument of shoes.

It commemorates the Jews that are in some of the death camps.

The morning after the survivors spoke at the First United Methodist Church, they came to our school,

because they wanted to see first-hand

what the children were doing with this project

and have a special time with these students.

It is important to me to tell these stories,

because there are people in the world

which are denying that it ever took place.

..in order to annihilate us and erase any trace of whatever happened.

At least, that was their intentions.

We were put on a dead march

and usually we marched during the night, mostly,

so we wouldn't be visible to the general public.

Most of us didn't make it.

The Americans, they showed themselves on the horizon,

and I ran out of camp.

And I was hiding, so I spent the night over there and I wouldn't dare go out.

I waited until the next day. I had to risk it, and I went out.

The Americans were there.

And I was a free person to do what I...

But I'm still here. That's the main thing.

I want you all to know,

I came here to the United States in 1948,

and I've been the happiest ever.

HE SOBS

I want you to know happiness makes me cry more than anything else.

I never have thought about it this way before, but after I heard his speech

and how emotional he got, it really touched me.

APPLAUSE

I just can't imagine just one day being at home and the next day being

shipped off to a concentration camp and being tortured like that...

It just makes no sense why people in the world let that happen.

It made me realize, the next time I say the Pledge of Allegiance, I'm going to think of how...

glad I am that it's a free country

and I have the right to do what I feel and say what I say. I just...

Being much more respectful to it.

When I was finished, they embraced me and hugged me and kissed me.

They couldn't... They never heard these, some of them cried even.

Because they never heard stories like this here and they were never in contact with people that...

experienced it.

To me, they're my heroes because they've been through everything.

I'm gonna take what they've told me and pass it down

with my kids to their grandchildren and so on,

and to my friends and my family.

Where they will always remember that this horrible thing happened and,

hopefully, they can prevent it from ever happening again.

They're learning from what we're teaching and they're teaching others.

That's the whole point of this project - to teach their children

and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Growing up in the South, growing up in rural Tennessee, as I have,

I've been exposed to a lot of racial remarks.

You know, my dad is the greatest man on earth.

And I have no doubt of that.

But he has a bias,

and he can make racial slurs.

And it's not anything against him.

Going into college, I had an African-American roommate

and loved him like a brother and still do.

But it was nothing for me to, even sometimes in his presence, say racial slurs or...

And I look back now,

and I hope that it didn't...

I guess...

I hope it didn't hurt him.

-This is one of your favourites, isn't it, Cody?

-Yes.

-It's your favourite, too.

-Yeah, it is, and it was one of my favourites when I was little.

Now, this project, I see things like that. "Hit the ball, said Danny.

"Hit a homerun, said the dinosaur."

It makes me, you know, very aware.

And I make sure, with two small sons,

that I don't say it.

I don't want them to grow up and say that, and say, "Well, my father said this."

Cos that would...

That would be the worst thing they could say.

Good night.

See you boys in the morning, OK?

-Say your prayers before you go to sleep.

-OK.

By the time the survivors visited us, we had more than four times

the number of paper clips that we originally set out to collect.

There was not a place in this school, not even the broom closet,

that wasn't just flooded with paper clips.

And we were at dinner one night with the Schroeders, and conversation

was just flowing, and Linda, just in between bites, said....

"You know what I really wish we could have?

"I wish that we could have an authentic German railcar

"of the period to house our paper clips as a permanent memorial."

And conversation just stopped.

And we all kind of looked at each other and thought, "Oh, a railcar!

"Oh, we have to have a railcar!"

And the Schroeders were like, "This is the idea. We will find a railcar.

"We promise you, we will find a railcar."

I think when the decision was made to get the railcar and the Schroeders volunteered

to find one, I really don't think they knew what they were getting into.

Oh, my God, we wrote to everyone and his brother and asked him,

"Do you know where a cattle car like this is?"

And everyone and his brother wrote us back, "There are no such things."

And then we decided to look for it ourselves.

And we went on a detective tour.

We drove 3,000 miles criss-cross through Germany,

and went to every rail yard we can imagine.

And, kaboom,

we found one.

This car has a long history.

It was built 1917.

Then, 1933, Nazism came

and then it transported victims to concentration camp.

And then it went on another journey,

and the journey was from north of Berlin, from the Railroad Museum, to the German port of Cuxhaven.

Well, the Schroeders called us one day at school and said that they were successful in finding a car.

And they said it would be a short time that they would ship

the car from Germany to the United States, to the port of Baltimore.

Come on in, we've got chairs!

At 10:00am on November the 9th,

we hope to dedicate this railcar.

'When we got to a certain point in establishing this memorial,

'we realized we needed lots and lots of help,

'so we said, "OK, we're going to have a community meeting." '

Right now we have, on this property,

27 plus million paper clips.

We've gotta have help.

We've got to have a parking committee.

We have to have a landscaping committee.

It's got to look pretty around it, now.

We also have to figure out how to get the paper clips in there.

You know, you're talking about 22 metric tons, you know?

I have a hard time visualizing my fat self, much less 22 metric tons!

OK.

Now, we'll type these committees up.

We'll send all of you darlings a copy, so don't you leave here till we get your address.

If you want to see where it's going, come out here and I'll show you.

'We had children from all the previous groups show up and they brought their parents with them,

'and they saw that other people in the community came,

'people they knew would be working to get this thing going.

'This community is going to have a piece of living history

'like no other communities have.

'No large urban areas, nobody else has a piece of history like we're going to have here.'

The car will sit approximately halfway between this point...

'Sometimes when I think about this project, I think, "Who is really in charge of this project?" '

...Can not be closer than 20 feet to that wall.

'People who are interested in this project will call me up and say, "What's your plan?"

'Well, I've never had a plan.

'What do we know about building a memorial?

'What do I know about getting a railcar from Germany?

'I think that there's a far greater power

'than the people at Whitwell Middle School in charge of this project.

'And, if not, you tell me how we got this far.'

I said, "God created the world in less than seven days," and someone said,

"Yes, and he didn't have Linda Hooper helping him."

LAUGHTER

You have certain feelings when you see a car like this, and you can't

help but remember what happened in this car some 60 years ago.

Our work is done, I think.

We brought the car over, and that's it.

You think so? I don't think so...

I hope so, I hope so.

It will stay with us forever.

That's possible.

We thought, "We have seen this cattle car now numerous times."

"We know this cattle car.

"It can't do anything to us."

Then you realize what this car actually means.

THEY SHOUT INSTRUCTIONS

This car transported people to concentration camps.

They put in 80, 90, 110 people.

They suffocated in these cattle cars, and one quarter of every victim...

of all the victims were children.

Now it is here in Baltimore,

and then it goes down to Chattanooga and to Whitwell,

but this will be the end of this car's journey.

This car will not transport people any more.

This car will be a symbol.

TRAIN HORN HOOTS

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 our most tragic days.

# Sun came up on Monday morn

# The world was all in flames

# It's all a mortal man can do

# To make it right again

# Swing and turn, Jubilee

# Live and learn, Jubilee

# Time has come to travel on

# I made my way alone

# Souls will mend at journey's end This road will take me home

# Swing and turn, Jubilee

# Live and learn, Jubilee

# Swing and turn, Jubilee

# Live and learn,

# Jubilee. #

When I first saw the car,

it moved me, I mean, almost to tears.

That's the reason I went up and laid my hands on the car to start with.

To sort of, you know, in my mind, go over what's happened with this car

and what it's meant to history,

and what it means to me, personally.

And then when it came here and I got to look inside it, it just...

you know, it killed me.

It's unbelievable, the thoughts that go through your head.

I was one of the first to actually stand in the railcar.

The floor was sort of rotten and you had to watch where you stepped.

But just the thought of 100 people fitting in that small area is just...

it's heartbreaking.

And Miss Hooper got up there with me, and she just burst into tears.

When people began to climb into the railcar, I just...

I couldn't handle that...

Because, to me, it had a life of its own,

and I have never been in that car yet that I don't hear those voices,

and feel that pain.

It survived,

in the face of overwhelming odds,

and now it's come home.

Cassie and I were standing in the car today, and we kind of had our hands on the car.

And she said, "What would it tell us if it could talk?"

I said, "Cassie, it would tell us

"you're paying homage to people

"who suffered simply because of the way they believed,

"and because of hatred and ignorance."

This is all about,

not only mourning their loss,

but celebrating their life.

What I did think that day is,

"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're going to stand here, and you're going to say,

" 'There is good in this world.' "

From now until November 9th, it will be a work in progress.

It's hard for me to understand the enormity of this project,

of how many people know about it,

you know, how far this project has reached.

Behind each side there will be five and half million paper clips.

And I look at these people that are right here today, and they're as excited about this as I am.

We're doing it on a volunteer basis and...

just for the town and for the people.

The whole community is involved in it,

and what little bit we can contribute, why, I'm glad to do so.

GENTLE CHIMING

The idea for the butterfly came when Miss Hooper told me that a

young person from Poland had written a poem, and he lived in a ghetto.

And he said in the poem, "I may never live to see another butterfly."

Butterflies are a symbol of freedom,

and they are a symbol of this project.

When you think about all the people that died,

I'm honouring those people with these butterflies...

More or less honouring them with wings,

so they can fly!

Once we received all of the paper clips, or the paper clips slowed to

a very manageable amount, we were well over 29 million paper clips.

So when it came time to load the railcar with the paper clips,

the children were extremely selective.

We'll just start here. Alison, 4,500...

'They wanted to be sure that gifts from as many people as possible would go into the memorial.

'So they took paper clips from lots of different donations.

'We decided that we should put a total of 11 million paper clips into the car.' That's good.

'Six million to represent the Jewish people who were murdered

'and five million representing the homosexuals, the gypsies, and the Jehovah Witnesses,

'and all the other people known to have been killed by Hitler's regime.

'This project had been the focus of my life for four years.

'I was Miss Roberts, the paper clip lady.

'But I can look at this child or this child, and if that one child's life was changed,

'then it was worth it.'

I think when you look at these paper clips, the purpose of it is to remember

those lives that were exterminated during the Holocaust.

It just overwhelms you.

What if those people had not been exterminated?

Who was destroyed there?

Was it another wonderful teacher?

Was it an artist?

And I think of all the grandchildren that never came to be, all the children that never came to be.

"What a wonderful way to remember the six million souls

"that perished in Nazi death camps during World War II."

"This especially touches me, because 51 years ago, about two weeks after the war in Europe ended,

"I flew in as part of a rescue team to bring food,

"medicine, medical assistance to the then recently-liberated

"Mauthausen death camp near Linz, Austria."

As we went by the medical centre,

I believe that this young lady saw the mezuzah I was wearing.

She was very emaciated.

I would say she was probably 20 years old, my age at the time,

but I do remember to this day her very, very large, beautiful brown eyes -

who looked, probably, more beautiful because her face was so thin -

and she spoke to me, in Yiddish,

and said, "Are you Jewish?" - which I am, and she took my hands,

clasped them and kissed them.

As weak as she was holding my hand, I felt that it became weaker, and then we had to move on.

And then it was time to leave,

and I went by the medical building,

and I asked how the young lady was.

That's when they told me her name was Malka, and they said, "She died shortly after you left."

And I had not mentioned this to anyone,

even my wife and my children didn't know that story.

I had great difficulty.

I actually broke down and cried, and I don't cry easily,

but that was the first time since it happened,

that I let it out of me.

The letter was so much of a closure for me.

Because Malka has found a resting place, a final resting place.

Not in Austria, not in Germany, not in Poland, but Appalachia, Tennessee.

And I can't get over that.

It's giving her a resting place,

among young people who love her

and have compassion for her,

and you couldn't ask for a better resting place than that.

-And...

-HE COUGHS

This one represents Malka,

the lady at Mauthausen.

And we're going to treat these paper clips like the children have said.

One of them said to me, "Ms Hooper, when you touch these...

"Can you feel the souls?"

Well, yes, you can feel the souls, because most of them came with

a letter that told you about the soul that paper clip represented.

And, you know, if we accomplish nothing else, we have helped these people find a resting place

for something that was important to them.

So she had never displayed, never done any sculpture before.

Oh!

They're great. They are great.

Oh, my God. Oh!

Oh, my God.

It's good. It's very good.

It's really good. Really good.

Now that I've had these kids and spent all these hours with them,

I see that they have a lot of input to give, and that I was very, very quick to judge.

I listen to what they say and I value their input.

It's a gift to me. It's a gift to my children,

because it's made me a better dad, better father,

better teacher, better man.

Good morning.

I am so grateful to live in the United States of America.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I have such joy for all the love and the work that has gone into this project,

and I have such pride that I live in a community

where a group of very ordinary people

could bring to reality such an extraordinary event.

My heart is absolutely filled and overflowing with joy and pride.

I love this community,

and I love these children in this school.

There are so many people here today that deserve a hug.

To each one of you, we say thank you for giving your time and your talents.

I also would like to recognize David Smith and Sandra Roberts.

-Get up, guys.

-APPLAUSE

'I have learned more from this project than I ever could have taught.

'It has very slowly become not about me.'

And our Holocaust students, stand up.

'It's about -

'what will the students gain from this, what will they learn?

'And what will they take from this into their future lives?'

You will come at one time in your life - and, believe me,

this point will come - you come to a point where you think

everything goes wrong, nothing...

nobody loves you, you are lost or you might be a failure.

And, then, please come back to your memorial.

This is what you did and accomplished.

Come to this place, and it will uplift you,

and I hope then you will try again.

And I'm pretty sure that you will succeed again.

Whitwell is a place that brings out the best of all of us.

Thank you for that, and we love you.

When the living say this prayer, they remember the dead.

In remembering the dead, we remember the values that they have taught us.

The students from the Davis Academy in Atlanta, Georgia,

will now lead us in the Kaddish.

Yitgaddal v'yitqaddash sh'meh rabba

B'al'ma di v'ra' khiruteh v'yamlikh malkhuteh,

b'chayekhon uvyomekhon uvchaye d'khol bet Yisrael

b'agala uvizman qariv v'imru amen.

Y'he sh'meh rabba m'varakh alam ul al'me al'maya...

# We will not forget you

# Don't let the sands of time erase

# Don't let the memory disappear

# Won't let the memory disappear

# Don't let the memory

# disappear. #

DAVID: The job of collecting paper clips is over,

but the job of educating others will never be over.

And I think our job now is to give tours of the railcar

and to branch off into other schools and teach our lessons of the Holocaust.

They would stand at roll call between five and six hours to count how many people were there...

SANDRA: When we have field trips and the teachers say, "What do we need to do?"

And I say, "Nothing."

You might want to take your group out to the railcar and walk them out there.

And I say, "You're not a teacher today, you're just an observer.

"These children will teach."

And they teach.

-How many people was actually here during the Holocaust?

-80 to 100 people.

-The Norwegians wore paper clips like we're doing now?

-On their collars.

"My dear friends from Whitwell,

"words can only inadequately describe

"what your extraordinary project means to me,

"a Holocaust survivor and teacher.

"I witnessed what intolerance and indifference can lead to.

"In a short while, I will be 95 years of age.

"I am thankful that late in life,

"I can see and hear that the teaching of tolerance

"is still alive and well and bears fruit.

"When I heard about your project,

"I cried.

"I cried because you are the testament that a new age has dawned,

"the age of responsibility and the age of kindness of the heart.

"You are living proof

"that each and every one of us can make a difference

"and do his part to shape a better world.

"When you ask the young and innocent,

"they will do the right thing.

"With tears in my eyes, I bow my head before you.

"Shalom, Lena L Gitter."

I just can't wait till I get to

college and they ask me if you've ever had a life-changing moment.

The first thing that's going to come out of my mouth

will be the Whitwell Middle School Holocaust project.

I just cannot wait until that moment happens.

In the future, when I do come back and see it, knowing that I was here to do this, it will be like...

not just a memory, but kind of in your heart

to know that you've changed the way people think about other people.

To think that us, people from Whitwell, Tennessee,

if we have made such a big difference,

think what the rest of the world could do if they tried.

Not only did we educate other people about the Holocaust, but we educated ourselves.

We'll never look at a paper clip the same way again.

# The sun came up on Monday morn

# The world was all in flame

# It's all a mortal man can do

# To make it right again

# Swing and turn, Jubilee

# Live and learn, Jubilee... #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

# The moon came up, I stood my ground

# And swore to not give in

# To never rest and do my best

# To rid this world of sin

# Swing and turn, Jubilee

# Live and learn, Jubilee. #