Six million Paper Clips…
Authors inform students
Posted 9 months ago
Jeff Tribe Photo
Peter and Dagmar Schroeder visited Tillsonburg Thursday afternoon in conjunction with a showing of the documentary movie 'Paper Clip'. It, and their book 'Six Million Paper Clips' are based on a school project successfully undertaken by a 16-member Grade 8 class in Whitwell, Tennessee.
By Jeff Tribe
Staff Writer
Numbers beyond comprehension did not mean meaningful action was beyond the realm of possibility.
"It was children like you, kids like you," said Dagmar Schroeder to a group of elementary students from Tillsonburg and the surrounding area Thursday afternoon at Broadway Cinemas theatre . "When kids set their minds to something and are determined, they can do it."
The students had just watched the documentary 'Paper Clip'. Released in 2004 and two-and-a-half -years in the making, the movie tells the story of a Grade 8 class in Whitwell, Tennessee's efforts to understand the Holocaust.
Struggling to put the number six million (the number of Jews killed) into an understandable format, the 16-student class from a community of 1,600, embarked on a project to collect 6,000,000 paper clips. Paper clips were chosen as the medium, since they were worn in the lapels of Norwegians as a form of protest during Nazi occupation.
The project had stalled at around 140,000 paper clips when Peter and Dagmar Schroeder became aware of it, roughly 10 years ago. White House correspondents for a German newspaper, they were born in 1942 (Peter) and 1943 (Dagmar) respectively in Munich and Hamburg, Germany, and were alive, if not overly cognizant during Hitler's Third Reich.
Dagmar recalls nervously approaching her parents as a 16-year-old, having finally built up her courage enough to ask about their role during that time.
"People didn't talk about it in the beginning," said Dagma, who was afraid to ask a tough question, for fear of the answer she would receive.
"Would you like to know daddy was a Nazi?" asked Peter rhetorically.
"They didn't do anything wrong, they were bystanders," Dagmar continued. "But I think it's wrong enough to be a bystander."
Members of Peter's family were persecuted for their political beliefs, and were transported to concentration camps, although all would ultimately survive.
But moved by the potential of the project, they used their own columns (which ultimately were picked up around the world) and tapped media contacts (print and broadcast) to publicize the project.
"We saw the beauty and the possibility of this very early on," said Dagmar.
The idea of finding and shipping one of the rail cars used to transport Jews and other people slated for Hitler's 'final solution' to place the clips inside provided a significant boost.
Peter's search for one such 'cattle car' in Germany would get him arrested briefly for trespassing, but he persevered and was ultimately successful. He and Dagmar bought a rail car they are "ninety-nine-point-nine per cent certain was used to transport victims to a camp in Chelmno, Poland where it was abandoned, for $10,000. They had to come up with the money the following day and scrounged it from family and friends. From that point on, donated 'shipping and handling' got the rail car to its current location outside the school in Whitwell.
In the beginning, many paper clips arrived individually, accompanied by upwards of 40,000 heart-wrenching letters explaining the significance of donations from victims' descendents or survivors.
"And they came from all over the world," said Peter.
Their book, 'Six Million Paper Clips' on the project was published originally in German, and translated into English.
When the story was publicized across the United States (and hit NBC), clips came in 'truckloads', ultimately adding up to 30,000,000. This total has been split into 11,000,000 inside the 'cattle car' representing the six million Jewish and five million other victims of the Holocaust, and a separate 1.5-million in an obelisk, a children's Holocaust memorial, representing the number of child victims to die in the Holocaust.
The balance are given out one at a time to visitors (a list gathered from around the globe and including former U.S. vice-president Al Gore) as momentos or keepsakes.
A foundation has also been established to ensure the memorial's upkeep, research and 'digitizing' of letters and artifacts (a museum is located inside the school), and scholarships.
What makes the Schroeders particularly proud is the Holocaust is now included in the Tennessee curriculum, and their book part of the study of the same in 10 states. The documentary Paper Clip was also filmed, and was shown and appreciated greatly by Thursday afternoon's student audience.
The Schroeders followed up the movie with illustrative stories on prejudice and how it potentially can result in ultimately evil, urging the assembled children to battle against it at its source when possible. They also fielded questions from the students (and the odd teacher) on their experiences. For those who didn't have time to have their questions answered, they provided an email address: tolerance@shaw.ca.
And in touching on historical horror, they encouraged those within the theatre to learn from it, work to prevent its return, for as Dagmar re-iterated children can be victims, but as the Paper Clip project has proven, they can also make a big difference.
Sometimes children may need a little help and a little luck, Dagmar added.
"But try it, whatever it is."
