Editing Whitwell, Tennessee (section)

== Paper Clips Project ==
Whitwell has become renowned for the [[Paper Clips Project]], a [[Holocaust]] memorial and educational project, that was carried out by children of the local [[middle school]] starting in 1998. A subsequent documentary was made about the children's achievement. This project started because students at the local middle school wanted to visually grasp how much six million was. The students started collecting paper clips, one for every [[Jew]]  who was murdered in the Holocaust during World War II. This project soon attracted media attention and international support. Many Jewish notables sent paper clips representing lost members of their families. The children collected well over the number of paper clips they wanted (11 million, representing all noncombatant prisoners—Jew and Gentile—killed by the Nazis). The total collected number of paper clips now stands between ten and fifty million. This number is approximately equal to the total number of war deaths between 1939 and 1945. The rail car that appears in the movie is original rolling stock, actually used to transport Jews to the concentration camps. This rail car is located at the Whitwell Middle School. The Middle School routinely hosts Holocaust survivors as well as other guest speakers on the subject of the Holocaust.