Paper Clips

Struggling to grasp the concept of 6 million Holocaust victims, the students at Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee decide to collect 6 million paper clips to better understand the extent of this crime against humanity. Because Norwegians invented the paper clip and used it as a symbol of solidarity against the Nazis, students started collecting them to help visualize such vast numbers of victims. As word spread online and in the media, paper clips poured in from around the world, 11 million of which are enshrined in an authentic German railcar standing in the schoolyard.