There is so much that is negative and so much negativity about our world today and I admit to both falling prey to and perpetuating both with the essays and commentary in this blog. In many respects, if you care…if you are concerned, it is easy to get swept up in the foul energy that pervades so much about the world and easy to forget that there may just be an escape from this potentially consuming sense of … what…despair (is that too strong an emotion)? Easy to forget that there is a way to live without intolerance, without hate and without ignorance….until something like “Paper Clips” comes along to remind us that there is hope for us after all if we are simply willing to stop for a moment and allow for the kind of renewal that this brilliant film instills in anyone lucky enough to see it.
If you’re not familiar with the film, “Paper Clips” is the story of several middle school teachers in Whitwell, population 1600, an entirely Christian and almost exclusively white community in rural Tennessee who sought a way to expose their students to ideas and experiences that they would never encounter in their very insular and isolated small community and, in doing so, impart to them a lesson about hate, intolerance and prejudice. The event that they chose could not have been more removed from their existence --- the Holocaust and the six million Jews who were exterminated in death and work camps throughout Europe. That none of them…students, teachers, principal, had likely ever met a Jew, let alone experienced anything in their lives that could provide a context or framework to even begin to understand what had happened during those dark years makes the project all the more remarkable. Trying to come to grips with the sheer enormity of the loss – how to understand just what six million means – they learn that the Norwegians wore paper clips on their lapels as a way to show their resistance to Hitler’s policies and so decide to honor the six million by collecting paper clips, one for each soul that was lost at the hands of the Nazis. Over the next several years, because of the relentless dedication of school principal, Linda Hooper and teachers, David Smith and Sandy Roberts, the project continued and gradually gained national and international attention and, in doing so, eventually accumulated more than 29 million paper clips from all over the world, many donations accompanied by letters from Holocaust survivors or the children of Holocaust survivors and many simply accompanied by notes from strangers who were touched by the effort and wanted to make some sort of contribution. Indeed, one such gift came in a small valise which contained handwritten notes from German school children apologizing to Anne Frank for that which she and her family had endured. The words and pictures that provided the group with a basic understanding of the horrific event were transcended by a visit from four survivors who spoke first in a local Methodist church and then at a school assembly, giving voice – thick with Eastern European and Yiddish accents – to the horrors that they witnessed and ultimately survived and it is certainly the visceral impact of their individual and collective stories which finally and for once drove home the true impact and import of the images – so alien and distant – that the students and educators had viewed to acquaint themselves with the object of their lesson.
Ultimately, the teachers and students decide that the best way to bring closure to the project is to create a memorial to the victims and, with the aid of two visiting German journalists, Dagmar and Peter Schroeder, locate a rail car in Germany that was used by the Nazis to transport Jews to death camps in Eastern Europe. The Schroeders arrange to have the car brought to the United States and finally to Whitwell where its journey finally ends. In the words of Linda Hooper, it would no longer be a symbol of death, but one of hope. With a memorial garden surrounding it, the car becomes the final resting place for eleven million of the paper clips, one each for the Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and intellectuals who met their end at the hands of the Nazi regime. There is an unmistakable spiritual quality to the memorial that is palbable on the screen and one can only imagine the power of standing in the boxcar where so many met their end.
It is difficult to say exactly what it is about the film that provides such a powerful response to the world we have created for ourselves. Perhaps it is the genuine innocence of those 8th and 9th graders juxtaposed against the horrors that befell countless children like themselves or the realization…certainly for the first time…that words, however innocently uttered in ones’ community and among friends and family, can have tragic consequences when the stereotypes and prejudices that hide within those words are played out to their most illogical and horrible conclusion.
What is most telling and most powerful about the film is the unmistakable sense that it is the innocence and not the evil that wins in the end.
The film is available on HBO on Demand and certainly can be rented from your local video store. See it.
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