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(More customer reviews)It is so refreshing to see that there can be genuinely excellent documentaries such as "March of the Penguins" and this moving film, "Paper Clips," particularly in light of some of the schlock documentaries that have become hits in recent years. "Paper Clips" documents a project in the Whitwell, TN Middle School in which principal Linda Hooper leads dedicated students and teachers in a lesson on the meaning of the Holocaust. Whitwell is a lower middle class rural community that is almost exclusively white Christian. The members of the community set out to collect six million paper clips, one for each Jew killed by the Nazis. As word spread, contributions came from all over the country and, indeed, the world.
A group of holocaust survivors, from the Five Towns area of Long Island, New York, came to visit the community. Most people in Whitwell had never seen a Jew before but, the two groups instantly bonded. As they heard the tales of what happened in the Holocaust, there were many tears and hugs between the two groups. One student, Cassie Crabtree, was taken by how grandfatherly one of the survivors named Sam is. What happened in Whitwell is that two sets of sterotypes were shattered. The people of Whitwell learned how devestating prejudice and hatred is but, visitors to Whitwell learned how sterotypes of rural southerners as prejudiced rednecks is equally wrong and inaccurate.
It is so intensly moving to see that in our midst there are good, kindly, saintly people. The students, teachers and community members of Whitwell are truly such people. What is also moving is to see how this project grew beyond its original scope. With the help of two German born journalists, the community acquired a cattle car that the Nazis used to transport victims to the concentration camps. This car is a lasting memorial and the clips are kept in that car. Since they received such a huge number of clips, eleven million are stored there, six million for the Jews that were slaughtered and five additional million for the other victims of the Holocaust. What makes this movie so emotional is to see the genuine good that can exist in people as exemplified by the wonderful citizens of Whitwell, TN.
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PAPER CLIPS - DVD Movie
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