A friend brought over a DVD last night.  It was the most amazing heart-warming story.  Evidentially, a middle school teacher in a small town in Tennessee did a lesson on the dangers of intolerance and indifference that led to the Holocaust.  A student ask just how many people make up 6 million?  It's hard enough to fathom 50 or 100 people, but 6 million?!

Then someone had the idea to use an item in everyday life as a kind of gauge.   Another student found out the Norwegians used the paper clip as a symbol of Nazi resistance.  They began writing people all over asking for paper clip donations to the school project. 

I won't go into the details since you should see it for yourself, but the small school project soon became a worldwide effort resulting in collecting (eventually) about 29 million paper clips (all donated and delivered through letters), an authentic death camp German rail car and countless letters from people all around the globe including Tom Bosley (of Happy Days fame), Presidents Bush and Clinton and many Holocaust survivors. 

(on Amazon)

No spiffy special effects, but what a great feel good movie!

Since this has nothing to do with Japanese whatsoever here are two great links to learn about 杉原 千畝　（すぎはら ちうね）

Wikipedia Japan (In Japanese)
The Sugihara Project (in English)

He was the Japanese ambassador to Lithuania during the war.  Against orders from Tokyo, he wrote by hand some 6,000 visas (in about four weeks!) to allow Jews to escape Hitler's reach by going to Japan. 

I heard a story where as his train was leaving (after being removed by the Japanese government) he was still writing visas and handing them out through the train window.