Bermudians are being asked to join an international campaign for an unusual memorial to the Holocaust -- by donating paper clips.

Eighth grade students at the Whitwell Middle School in eastern Tennessee are trying to collect six million paper clips to represent each of the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust during the Second World War.

The Paper Clip Holocaust Project began when the students realised they had no concept of what six million looks like. The children decided to collect paper clips after one of them read that Norwegians wore them as symbol of opposition to Nazism and anti-Semitism during the Nazi occupation of Norway.

The students are planning to have the paper clips melted down and made into a sculpture to be displayed in their town. The sculpture is to be designed around the international sign for `no': a red circle but with the familiar red diagonal replaced by a large paper clip with a black swastika -- the symbol of the Nazi Party -- in the centre.

Now the project has been taken up worldwide by former Bermuda residents Peter and Dagmar Schroeder, two Washington-based White House correspondents for the German Newspaper Group.

The Schroeders, who lived at Convict Bay, St. George's until December 1998, stumbled on the project while doing research at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

After Mr. Schroeder publicised it in his syndicated daily commentary column throughout Germany and Austria, they have been swamped by donations not only from Germany and Austria but from around the world. More than 160,000 paper clips have been collected so far.

Mr. Schroeder said: "We received not only paper clips but also a lot of notes, essays, poems, eyewitness reports, drawings and so on.'' Following interest from two German publishers, the Schroeders plan to publish a book on the project later this year.

Mr. Schroeder added: "It would be nice if we could include some letters from Bermuda. Because the project of the school in Tennessee is an international affair, the organisers want reactions from people all over the world, and we'll include English language letters in our book as well.'' As neither Mr. nor Mrs. Schroeder are Jewish, why are they so passionate about keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive when many Germans would rather forget the darkest period of their history? Mr. Schroeder said: "Dagmar and I are two German journalists who think that a Holocaust memorial by children is a necessary reminder of what racism, anti-Semitism and `anti-foreigner sentiments' can lead to. Most Holocaust victims, of course, were not foreigners but German Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, political opponents, handicapped and other `unworthy lives'. And every Holocaust memorial is not only a monument to Jewish victims but all victims of oppression.'' He points out that this week's Holocaust Forum in Stockholm, Sweden, attended by Government representatives of some 50 nations, indicates that many people are concerned that the lessons of the Holocaust are being forgotten as neo-Nazis and extreme right wing political parties appear to be on the rise in Europe. No more so than in Austria, the birthplace of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, where the anti-immigration Freedom Party is in discussions with the conservative People's Party on forming a coalition Government.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak called the rise of Freedom Party leader Joerg Haider "highly disturbing'' for every Jew in the world. Mr. Barak, in Stockholm for the Holocaust Forum, said Israel would reassess its relations with Austria if the Freedom Party came to power.

And Mr. Schroeder stated: "Dagmar and I are convinced that `never again' should really mean `never again'. To spread the word -- and through monuments too -- should be an obligation to gentiles and Jews alike. Nationality, race, political persuasion or religious affiliation have nothing to do with it. But as holders of German passports, of a nation that perpetrated horrible crimes, whose citizens by a large degree (Jews and a lot of Gentiles again) became victims, and of a nation in which, more than half a century later, Jews and non-Jews are trying hard to live peacefully and without discrimination together, we feel compelled to further what we think is a noble and necessary cause.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair this week announced plans for an annual Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27 -- the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Allies.

"The Holocaust, and the lessons it teaches us for our own time, must never be forgotten,'' he said. "As the Holocaust survivors age and become fewer in number, it becomes more and more our duty to take up the mantle and tell each new generation what happened and what could happen again.'' Paper clips and letters can be sent to: Peter W. Schroeder, The Paper Clip Holocaust Project, 4100 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20016, USA.