Travel State Highway 41 through Tennesee’s Sequatchie Valley and you will pass through the small town of Whitwell, home to a most unusual tribute to the Jewish holocaust.

Whitwell Middle School Assistant Principal David Smith says holocaust studies were initiated at the southeast Tennessee school as the wave of school shootings began to sweep across the United States in the late 1990’s. Teachers and parents struggled to find a way to teach tolerance in an area with little diversity.

"Our school, at the time we started this project – and its pretty much the same now – we had four black children, no Catholics, no Jews, pretty much white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant children," Smith recalls. "One of the things that was talked about in this developmental meeting that started the project, was the fear of these kids not knowing diversity and not being tolerant of other people – something like that happening here. And that was one of the reasons they wanted to start this project was because of the intolerance that was being shown around the country. They wanted to sort of cut it off at the pass."

Once holocaust studies began at Whitwell, teachers quickly noticed that students were having trouble grasping the scope of six million murders. So they decided to have the children collect six million of something as way to graphically illustrate the awful size of the Nazi campaign. A student suggested paper clips after learning that many Norwegians placed them on their lapels as a silent protest against the wartime deportation of Jews.

"These are letters from around the world that sent us letters thanking us for doing this," says Trey Bell, an eighth grade student at Whitwell involved in the project.

Trey has opened up a large wire bound notebook stuffed with cards and letters mailed to Whitwell as word of the project spread. On their own time the children are carefully preserving the letters which now occupy an entire bookshelf in the school library.

Stopping at a letter written to the school by the granddaughter of holocaust survivors, Trey reads, "Dear Students: I’m sending this letter because I was really touched by the activity that you’re doing. My grandmother and grandfather were survivors from the holocaust. I told them about the activity that you are doing to preserve the memory of six million Jews that had got killed by the Nazi’s in holocaust. I truly hope that you will achieve your goal and I will help you a little bit by these two paper clips."

The students themselves are now, in turn, teaching others about the holocaust. School groups from three states have traveled to Whitwell in recent months to tour a small holocaust museum staffed by the students. The memorial is housed in a railroad boxcar, resting in the school parking lot.

Not just any rail car, this authentic German cattle car was actually used to transport Jews to death camps during the holocaust. The car was a gift from German journalists, Peter and Dagmar Schroeder who have written extensively about the Whitwell holocaust project for the German press and recently published a book on the subject simply titled The Project.

"My heart started beating when I saw it because I was in one of these cattle cars, during that horrible period," says Sam Offen, a holocaust survivor from Detroit, Michigan. Mr Offen is just one of several survivors to share their stories with the students at Whitwell. They gathered in the school auditorium to hear Mr. Offen speak about the day his mother and sister disappeared.

"My sister was only fifteen years old at that time," Mr. Offen recalls as he fights back tears. "After the war, after liberation, I found out that they were sent to an extermination camp in eastern Poland. They were gassed to death and their bodies were burnt in a crematoria."

While hearing such gruesome stories may be troubling for young minds, Whitwell eighth grader Chris Fox believes the holocaust project is having the desired effect.

Chris confesses, "I used to judge people just by the way they walked or talked or something. I’ve learned to get to know people before I judge."

Chris says the holocaust project is having an impact on his classmates as well, noting, "They treat people like people. Not just like things walking around."

Assistant Principle Smith says that the Whitwell holocaust project has proven so successful, the curriculum is being shared with other schools.

"We’ve had school groups from all over the United States write and call. We’ve sent back our lesson plans," he explains. "We’ve sent out information about our project. And that’s not just in the United States. We’ve had kids and school groups from Germany call and write and wanted more information about how we started and what we’ve done."

The Whitwell Middle School holocaust project was originally intended to last just three years. However, the results have been so positive staff, students and parents decided to continue indefinitely. The holocaust memorial project in Whitwell, Tennessee …just another stop along the American Highway.