"Paper Clips" is on HBO right now. I'm already crying. Watch

[Maraya1969]

It is about a very rural town in Tennessee who studied the Holocaust and collected paper clips to represent every person who died.

That's all I know so far. It is supposed to be very powerful.

[newscott]

1. The irony of their use of paper clips still bowls me over.

[yurbud]

5. do they mention it was the project to hire nazis after WW II?

[BrotherBuzz]

7. That was Project Paperclip... von Braun, and all that

this is a film called Paper clips

Paper Clips 

It's about how a middle school in Whitwell, Tennessee started a project to teach the students about tolerance and diversity. When they taught the 8th grade about the Holocaust, one student asked, "how many is 6 million?" A good question -- 6 million is too huge a number to conceptualize. The teacher suggested collecting 6 million of something, and asked the students to come up with something manageable to collect. The students discovered that paper clips were worn on lapels in Norway, during WWII to signify their resistance to the Nazis. Whitwell had found their symbol!

Not only were they successful in their collection (they ended up collecting over 29 million paper clips!), but they also came together as a community for the purpose of educating their children -- what a goal! Paper Clips is on HBO this month and next -- it's well worth the time, and truly, it's in the spirit of the season.

[sabra]

2. IMO, it's one of the best movies of last year.

I hope you have lots of kleenex.

peace.

[SharonRB]

11. The principal came and spoke here last spring

I went to see her. What a wonderful woman, and a great speaker.

[AlCzervik]

3. It was very good imo, keep the kleenex handy.

[susanna]

4. It is so powerful...great documentary. n/t

[Atman]

6. I got paper clip hate-mail the other day.

As some of you may recall, a while ago I suggested using a paper clip as a symbol of solidarity against the Bush regime's occupation of Washington. It spawned two or three very long threads and lots of great discussion. The card I created for free download still gets quite a few hits, and my site comes up when people search for Operation Paper Clip. Out of the hundreds and hundreds of downloads, I got my first direct response via e-mail just this week...

===

How insulting and ignorant of you to use the story of the Holocaust to promote your own political agenda.

I am a teacher interested in the meaning behind the paper clip as it was used in WWII. I was reading about the Paper Clip Project done by school children to represent all the victims of the Holocaust and I wanted to share this type of information with my own students.

However, I will never share the hateful things that you propose for the new paper clip symbol.

Please, instead of stealing and skewing someone else’s symbol, create your own for your own ideas.

===

I'm guessing the letter writer is a republican..."hateful symbols?" Sheesh.

[Sir_Snooze]

8. Hole in Atman's Hater's response to paper clip drive

Oh, but wasn't Hitler an extreme form of Republican? If so, the people of Norway who put the paper clips on are leftist. So are the Jews who used the symbol; they fought back against an ultra-right Hitler regime.

Well, that's the same idea, isn't it? Us lefties, fighting the right? While maybe not as extreme as the Norwegians, but we all fight BushCo, which is a crazy right-wing nutjob.

I see little difference, and I think only the shallow would.

[BlueEyedSon]

9. Arguably, the Bush regime is not into full-on holocaust territory yet.

I can see that some might not want to minimize the (capital H) Holocaust by comparing it to the relatively "smaller" Bush atrocities....

[Atman]

12. I wish I still had links to the thread. The symbology is not Halocaust

It is solidarity against an illegitimate regime. That is the gist of the Norway situation. After Hitler installed his puppet to rule Norway, the clip was used as a symbol linking people together. It isn't about gassing people or ovens.

We had looooong discussions about not directly equating the two. There were a couple of the most fascinating threads I've been involved with here in quite some time. Lots of great input!

[hootinholler]

13. Funny you should mention this...

I just got asked about my paperclip yesterday. Indeed, I wear one.

-Hoot

[Atman]

14. I still wear mine, too!

Good on ya! I still see a few paper clip avatars here on DU, too!

[Maraya1969]

15. I just grabbed a paper clip and put it on my shirt. It represents peace

and tolerance. I just heard that in the documentary, (which I cried all the way through BTW). As far as today, it represents my solidarity with others who want peace and want to allow other people the freedom to live according to their own beliefs, not ones imposed on them by us or anyone.

I was amazed when I heard the one man say he had pre-conceived ideas about Northerners. I have felt the same way about Southerners even though I now live in the south. I never considered that other people pre-judge ME.

[SharonRB]

10. It was wonderful

Did it just start? I'm going to go watch.