Six Million Paper Clips

Peter W. Schroeder and Dagmar Schroeder-Hildebrand have written a very easy to read book about one small town's creation of Holocaust Memorial.  8th grade students, participating in an after-school, voluntary class about the Holocaust have difficulty quantifying the figure of 6 million.  In an attempt to better understand the horrific statistic, the students begin to collect 6 million paper clips.  What began as a simple idea to visualize a number, became a world-wide labor of love.  Students in Whitwell, Tennessee eventually collected close to 30 million paper clips. 

The students built a memorial.  An authentic cattle car houses 11 million paper clips, while a second memorial houses an additional 11 million.  The remaining paper clips are sent to other children who are also attempting to collect the millions of paper clips necessary to honor the victims of the genocide.

Six Million Paper Clips is a phenomenal story of learning about and teaching tolerance.