By:Andrew Coen
Sam Sitko of Woodmere, Bernard Igielski of North Woodmere, Rachel Gleitman of Lawrence and Joe Grabezak of Lynbrook, all members of the Holocaust Survivors Group of the Jewish Community Center (JCC) of the Greater Five Towns in Cedarhurst, visited the small Tennessee town of Whitwell May 22-23, 2001 to teach tolerance to middle school students through the study of the Holocaust.
The local survivors, whose visit was filmed for the documentary, had learned about the students' paper clip project, in which they collected millions of the mini-items to remember each of the more than 6 million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust as well as 5 million other casualties. The four local survivors found out about the project on the Internet and volunteered to speak to the students as well as parishioners at the Whitwell Methodist Church.
"Paper Clips," which started airing earlier this month at the Malverne Cinema & Art Center and in Kew Gardens Queens, was also viewed by the Holocaust Survivors Group last Thursday morning. The Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR) Middle School was the first local school to view the documentary and so touched by the film that they decided to join the Tennessee school and collect their own paper clips to remember the many innocent victims of the Holocaust.
"For people [in Tennessee], who have never seen a Jew before, to show so much love is something I will never forget," Gleitman said right after the film was shown to the Holocaust Survivors Group.
After the showing, Grabezak spoke to the group about his visit to Tennessee and remarked how silent the Tennessee students were while he recounted the horrors of the Holocaust. "You could hear a fly go by," said Grabezak. "They were so emotional. The friendship of these people is indescribable."
"It makes me feel that people who perished in my family now have a resting place," Igielski said after the film was shown.
Miryam Werdyger, who volunteers with the Holocaust Survivors Group, said the film changed her impression of the life and culture of the southern part of the country. "It touched my own prejudice," said Werdyger. "When I think of the south, I think of anti-Semitism, but that is not at all what came out of this film."
"Paper Clips" was named one of the top documentaries of the year by the National Board of Review, an almost century-old group of film historians, students and educators.
At HAFTR, the sixth, seventh and eighth-graders constructed bracelets after Israel Garber, a parent, saw the film and contacted one of the film's producers, Matthew Hiltzig, to find out how they could help market "Paper Clips."
"They are so excited to be a part of the ["Paper Clips Project]," Garber's wife, Sharon, said last Wednesday as she was helping the HAFTR sixth-graders make the bracelets.
HAFTR also gathered more than 2,000 paper clips in memory of those who perished in the Sept. 11, 2001 World Trade Center attacks. "The students were uplifted by a project done by fellow students their own age, and the impact that kids their own age can have is simply overwhelming," said HAFTR Middle School Principal Rabbi Dovid Kupchik.
"Six million I just thought of as a number until they started collecting the paper clips," said HAFTR eighth-grader Jacob Dachs.
"I thought it was interesting to see a small group of people in Tennessee who had never met Jews before want to learn about the Holocaust," said HAFTR eighth-grader Michael Schwartz. "I cried, it was so emotional."
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