Paper Clips Movie Review

I seen Paper Clips on Netflix while I was browsing around trying to find a movie to watch. The name caught my eye and I seen the Star of David made of paper clips so I was intrigued to see what it was about.

Paper Clips is an award winning documentary that was released in 2004. It's about a middle school from Whitwell, Tennessee that began a class project to educate students about the Holocaust. It would teach students to practice tolerance and about being prejudice. In the class they learned that six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. Unable to comprehend how six million would look they decided to collect something so they could actually see it for theirselves.

The kids did research to see what exactly they could collect. Then they learned that people from Norway, who resisted Nazi Germany, would wear paper clips in their lapels to show their support for the Jews. They had found what they were going to collect.

They needed six million paper clips. There's only about 2000 people that live in Whitwell so they had some searching to do. They wrote actors and actresses, politicians, anyone would might be able to help. It seems like overnight what started as a small class project had turned into a world event. Their Holocaust Education class was in the national news. Suddenly people from around the world were sending in paper clips. It wasn't just any paper clips though. For the most part each one represented a person that was lost during the Holocaust. People would send letters explaining their story and what person their paper clip represented. It was so emotional to see and hear all of those letters.

After about 5 years they had collected around 30 million paper clips. Their school began to overflow with boxes of recorded and documented letters and paper clips. They decided to have a rail car brought from Germany that was once used to haul the Holocaust victims to concentration camps as a monument. They filled the rail car with only the most precious paper clips, the ones that remembered someone. They filled the car with 11 million paper clips. Six million for all the Jews killed and the other five million for all of the homosexuals, gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses and other groups killed by the Nazis. There is also a suitcase that was sent in from a class from Germany. It contains letters of apologizes to Anne Frank.

Before the dedication service there were a few people that came to speak to the community of Whitfill, Tennessee. It was survivors of the Holocaust. People that had actually experienced such great heartache. You could feel the pain in their voices and stories.The monument was uncovered on the anniversary of the Kristallnacht, November 9, 2001.

My favorite part was at the end when a gentleman was speaking about a woman he had met just after her concentration camp was freed. He hadn't known her but for a brief time before she died. He wanted to give the paper clip in remembrance of her. He wanted her to finally have a resting place where she would be loved for and showed compassion.

This movie made me cry almost the entire time. Paper Clips was a very emotional story and also makes you realize that maybe you too have been prejudice. We all need to accept that people are made different and in the end we're all human.

I definitely recommend watching this movie. There were some cheesy parts but aside from that it was a very moving movie.

4 out of 5 stars