Peace, Human Rights & Democracy  |  Youth & Children

The World Changed by a Paperclip
 By Chris Chivers
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
 

It is 11 September 2001, a day to which the pupils of Whitwell Middle School in Tennessee have been looking forward for almost three years. As morning dawns in Whitwell, a small town over the mountains from Chattanooga, nestled in the Sequatchie Valley, and with a population of only 1600 people, its children rush excitedly to school. They are excited because they believe that the cattle truck for which they have been waiting for almost a year now will arrive today. But as the cattle truck rolls slowly from Baltimore through the countryside towards Tennessee, passenger planes are slammed by their terrorist pilots into the side of the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and a rural field in Pennsylvania. The news filters through to the school, piercing the excitement and anticipation of its students with the horrible realisation that their country is under attack. The children, like millions across the globe, watch the television coverage with tears in their eyes. No-one can say a thing. But then a little girl speaks up: 'If I had not known why we had spent so long trying to find that cattle truck, I would know it now.'

The story of the cattle truck to which that little girl was referring had begun in 1998. Whitwell is a place entirely populated by white, Protestant citizens. There are no Catholics, no Jews, no Muslims: no-one of any other ethnic origin than people drawn from Anglo-Saxon stock. But like most monochrome, small-town communities in the world its citizens had begun to realise that Whitwell could no longer be as introspective and unaware of a culturally diverse planet as it had perhaps for too long remained. Its children were growing up and leaving the town. Going to big cities and encountering in the people living and working in these cities a richness of cultures, faiths, languages and nationalities. Was Whitwell preparing its children for the real world?

... a little girl speaks up: 'If I had not known why we had spent so long trying to find that cattle truck, I would know it now.'
As parents and teachers alike began to reflect on this question, so a desire to teach what the Americans call 'diversity' began to manifest itself. But where to start? One teacher came back from a conference where he had studied the Holocaust, and knew that he had the answer. The Shoah, the annihilation of the Jews, the extermination of gypsies, homosexuals, intellectuals, the physically and mentally handicapped, Christian, Communist or other political opponents of Nazism: this had been one of the most terrible events in the history of the world. They would use it as a way in to understanding why there remains so much tension and difficulty between races and religions, and why this invariably spills over into bitter hatreds and terrible violence. But as the children began to study the Holocaust, so one problem consistently confronted them. Their teachers told them that 6 million Jews had been killed. And 5 million others too. But how could they envisage what 11 million meant? They tried to get some idea by making a pyramid of shoes, like the room of victims shoes piled, one on top of another, which visitors encounter when they walk through Auschwitz. But though this was a frightening enough sight, it couldn't get them close to understanding the scale of the Shoah. Their pile of shoes represented but a hundred people. How could they get a sense of what 6 million or 11 million actually meant?

'Let's collect six million of something,' one student suggested. 'Go on,' the teacher said. She could tell he'd given this some thought. 'What about collecting paper clips?' he continued. 'Why paperclips?' she asked him. 'Well, if we go onto the Internet,' he said, 'we can learn that the paper clip played a big part in the Holocaust.' Which is what the class did, discovering that when the Nazis invaded Norway, they banned the wearing of any badges or broaches bearing the image or initials of the exiled King Haakon VII. The only badges allowed were the yellow stars to be worn by Jews, so that they could easily be identified and dispatched to concentration camps. To protest at this edict, non-Jewish Norwegians began to wear paper-clips - a Norwegian invention - affixed to pockets, collars, cuffs and hemlines because the paper-clip's function was to bind things together. It would thus bind them together as a people in their resistance to the Nazis. So the children of Whitwell would collect 6 million, even 11 million paper clips.

Over the next few weeks the Whitwell students collected one thousand paper clips from the town. Then they wrote to famous people - like Bill Clinton and Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg - until after almost a year of collecting they had amassed 160,000 paper clips. At this rate it would take them thirty-seven and a half years to reach their goal. They were a little disheartened. The project was losing a bit of momentum. But then, through the wonders of the Internet their diversity classes were spotted by two Germans, Dagmar and Peter Schroader, who were White House correspondents for some German newspapers. What could they do to help? They wrote some articles for their fellow Germans, telling the story of the project so far and adding a simple plea for help. And in the months ahead, newspapers elsewhere picked up this story, promoting its request for assistance.

Their pile of shoes represented but a hundred people. How could they get a sense of what 6 million or 11 million actually meant?
People were encouraged to send paper clips. But no-one could have anticipated the response as, day after the day, the small post office in Whitwell was literally deluged with boxes of paper clips from all across the world. The whole school became full of them. They were in classrooms, and under stairways, in the library and in the broom cupboard. It soon reached the point where they were a health and safety hazard. What on earth would be done with them, now that not just six million, or eleven million but almost thirty million had been collected?

Some of the adults in the community suggested melting them down to make a memorial, a metal sculpture, out of them. Everyone agreed that a memorial was an excellent idea. But the children rightly pointed out that the paper clips represented people whose lives had ended in the ovens of the camps. They couldn't be burnt again. What form then should the memorial take?

In the course of their studies the children had, time and again, come across powerfully evocative pictures of the Holocaust. But of all of these the ones that had struck them most were those of the tiny, clay-coloured cattle-trucks in which victims had been herded to be sent to their deaths. Could they obtain one of these trucks and display eleven million paper clips inside it as a memorial?

... as we remember all victims of hatred and violence, let's spare a thought as well for the children of Whitwell Middle School, because they remind each one of us that we can make a difference.
The journalists Dagmar and Peter Schroeder offered to help. They would contact Deutsche Reichsbahn, the German rail company who, during the Second World War, had transported prisoners to the death camps. But the company had no Güterwagen - no box cars - left from that time. The Schroeders tried all sorts of other sources - collectors, scrap yards - but to no avail. Just as the search seemed to be reaching its fruitless conclusion they learnt of a railroad museum north of Berlin that owned a cattle truck number 011-993 which historical research had shown to be one that had transported prisoners to their deaths in Sobibor in Poland. The Schroaders explained the paper-clip project to the Director of the Museum and asked him if he would sell the truck to them. But the Director replied that it had taken ages to find such a truck to complete their collection, so he could not sell it to them. As he was walking them to the Museum gates they had one last try. 'Do you have any children?' Dagmar Schroeder asked him. 'Yes, I have a lovely daughter,' he replied. 'Did you know,' Dagmar continued, 'that one and half million children died in the Holocaust, many of whom were transported to their deaths in cattle trucks like the one in your museum? Wouldn't it be wonderful to fill a truck with the paper clips, one and a half million of which would symbolise the child-victims of the Holocaust, because we want to ensure that no child in the future ever has to go through what those children experienced?' The Director paused for a moment. 'I understand,' he replied. 'We will sell you the truck.'

And so it was that the truck came to be transported to Whitwell, Tennessee, on 11 September 2001, where it now stands filled with eleven million paper clips. In the middle of them is displayed a 1940s suitcase sent by the pupils from a German School, who filled the case with letters to Ann Frank, asking for her forgiveness for what their fellow countryman had done to her. Another eleven million paper clips - encased in a memorial beside the truck - are a further reminder of all those who died as the victims of Nazi racist ideology.

This Sunday, our hearts and minds will doubtless turn to the victims of 9/11 on the fourth anniversary of their deaths. Perhaps we will also think of the terrifying echoes of a 9/11 in the dead of Bali, Basra, Baghdad, Madrid, London and simply too many other places over the last four years. But as we remember all victims of hatred and violence, let's spare a thought as well for the children of Whitwell Middle School, because they remind each one of us that we can make a difference. We can change the world with a single paper clip.


Chris Chivers is Canon Chancellor of Blackburn Cathedral. Previously he was Precentor at Westminster Abbey and St George's Cathedral, Cape Town. His regular column with The Witness is "Tell It Slant." Chris may be reached by email at chris.chivers@blackburn.anglican.org