What Humble Paper Clips Can Do: The Children’s Holocaust Memorial Honors Jewish Victims of World War II

Tucked snugly between the Sequatchie Valley and the Cumberland Plateau, the Children's Holocaust Memorial is an unexpected cultural goldmine for children and adults alike. The memorial began as a Whitwell Middle School project on tolerance and cultural respect in 1998. Then principal Linda Hooper had sent one of the school's eighth-grade teachers to an iEARN (International Education & Resource Network) conference, who then created a study of the Holocaust for students based on the ideas presented.

The first Holocaust education class was held in October of 1998. Upon learning that Norwegians wore paper clips on their lapels to protest Nazi policies, a student suggested that the group try to collect six million paper clips, one for each of the six million Jewish Holocaust victims. A mass letter-writing and collecting project ensued. Students wrote to everyone they knew asking for paper clips and stories; they even created a webpage dedicated to their efforts. By the end of the school year, the group had collected about 700,000 paper clips, along with several hundred letters and documents, and the Children's Holocaust Memorial was born.

"The project began as a means to allow our rural students to have a window to the world," says Hooper, former Whitwell Middle School principal and current memorial coordinator. "We wanted them to understand the consequences of hate and intolerance, and we wanted the project to teach students that every word and action has an impact on good or evil in their world. We also wanted them to realize that every human is a creation of God and that to be disrespectful to another human is to be disrespectful to God."

Since that first year, the students of Whitwell have collected over thirty million paper clips and over thirty thousand letters from all fifty states and over fifty countries across the seven continents. Tying all these together is an authentic German rail car part of the German Reichsbahn, one of the very last remaining "cattle cars" of the Nazi era. Formerly used to transport 80-150 victims at a time to concentration camps, this rail car now houses eleven million paper clips, one for each victim (Jews and non-Jews) of the Holocaust. The community beautified the surrounding area to create a small park that housed eighteen butterfly sculptures in honor of the 15,000 children held captive in the Terezin concentration camp.

"To me, the Memorial demonstrates the power of one," says Hooper. "That we can create a world where love, respect, and tolerance are the rule, not the exception. I am drawn to how this project impacts lives, from the students and community members to people on every continent. We want visitors to share the message of the Children's Holocaust Memorial that it only takes the actions of one person to change the world."

Since its inception over two decades ago, the Children's Holocaust Memorial has educated over 20,000 visitors. It is currently closed due to COVID-19 precautions but plans to welcome visitors back to 1 Butterfly Ln, Whitwell, TN 37397 once the pandemic is under control. For more information on the memorial, you can visit the website or email Linda Hooper at whitwelltraveler@gmail.com.