Six Million Paper Clips: The Making of a Children's Holocaust Memorial

by Peter W. Schroeder and Dagmar Schroeder-Hildebrand

Book Overview

The true story of students who helped quantify the horrors of the Holocaust

At a middle school in a small, all white, all Protestant town in Tennessee, a special after-school class was started to teach the kids about the Holocaust, and the importance of tolerance. The students had a hard time imagining what six million was (the number of Jews the Nazis killed), so they decided to collect six million paperclips, a symbol...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 158013176X
• ISBN13: 9781580131766
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Kar-Ben Publishing (R)
• Length: 64 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 8.3" x 9.3"
• Age Range: 8 to 13 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 8

Customer Reviews

The Paper Clip Project

This is a well written account of the paper clip project at Whitwell Middle School that will touch the heart of people throughout the world. It shows the changes that people went through as the project evolved. Once this book is read, one cannot help but feel a part of a movement that is still attracting more and more people. This is a wonderful book that goes well with the movie, Paper Clips.

Riveting Story of Diversity

This is a companion book to the documentary about the Paper Clip project started at Whitwell Middle School outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in the late 1990s. What began as a class to teach diversity to a mostly white southern group of schoolchildren evolved into a project of collecting 6 million paper clips (the clips are historically tied to the Holocaust) to represent the Jews who perished during that dark period. This book is a wonderful story that shows what can be accomplished when children are determined and how a relatively small idea can grow into something significant that can affect millions of people. This one is highly recommended for children of all ages.

Deserves 10 stars

I happened upon a review and ordered the book. When it arrived, I read it with a lump in my throat and my eyes tearing up. My 72 year old mother and I were driving to another town when I started telling her about it. I couldn't get that damn lump out of my throat and pretty soon my voice started quivering and I started crying. She just reached over and held my hand as I got my composure back. I was done, though, I told her she had to read it. She did. Afterward, she took it to one of her clubs and shared it. It's just a 10 minute read, but it sure provides plenty of emotion. I am so glad I happened upon it. A glorious story. Thank you.

Six Million Paper Clips

I recently bought "Six Million Paper Clips" during a business trip to the US and wish I had taken more copies home to give away. Because it is a very powerful book on the Holocaust. But reading it you'll realize that is covers this monstrous atrocity only on the surface. In reality it shows that seemingly innocent behaviour ("I don't like this or that") is only the first stepping-stone to xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism and what have you. Normally my children have trouble reading English (except for the lyrics of rap songs) but this book they didn't put away. They read it in a single session one evening until deep in the night. And the next day they read it again. Because this book has all the ingredients young readers look for: It tells (lovingly and never condescending) a compelling story, it has its cliff-hanger moments, even humour, and a happy ending that is asking for tears of joy. And guess what: The adults I gave the book to read loved it for the same reasons. And none of them were Jewish. This book is marketed as a children's book. But in reality it is much more, a book for all ages and for everyone. And we all can learn - and change. My kids did. Reading the book it dawned on them that all their squabbles and sibling-infighting can go out of hand - as it did in Nazi-Germany and some other places and even right now. My kids ("I can't stand him and her") now want to sleep in the same room - to make up for times lost. I have only one complaint: Is wish Six Million Paper Clips had been published when I was a kid. And this book deserves more than five stars. Peer Herrmannsson