For the young folks who left the poor Tennessee town of Whitwell – where virtually all 1,660 residents were white Christians – leaving home often meant a disturbing confrontation with strange new cultures. These cultural clashes sometimes left them confused, fearful of the bizarre and terrifying world outside of Whitwell’s borders, and often brought them back to the comfortable, unchallenging town of their nativity.
It was in this environment, said documentary filmmaker Joe Fab, that the local middle school decided to foster understanding of the world beyond Whitwell. In Fab’s documentary, Paper Clips, about which he will speak tonight at 7 p.m. in the EMU Ballroom, the middle school decides to study the Holocaust, and in the process garners international attention. In an interview, Fab said that problems arose when administrators told the students that 6 million Jews perished under the lash of Nazi brutality. The number was far too abstract for the students to grasp, so it was decided that they would collect 6 million paper clips, to symbolize each of the dead.
As the project progressed, and the media caught wind, the children soon started receiving paper clips from Poland and Germany, some with letters telling the stories of lost loved ones. Now, on the middle school’s campus, a rail car that carried thousands to their deaths rests, contains 11 million paper clips in memory of the Jews, gypsies, leftists, gay men and lesbians, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the other minorities slaughtered by the Nazis.
After a free showing of the documentary at 7 p.m. in the EMU Ballroom, Fab will give a brief speech. The presentation is sponsored by Oregon Hillel, the Jewish Student Union, the ASUO, the Oregon Humanities Center and MEChA.
– Edward Oser