DIXFIELD – Each of the thousands of pull tabs represents a child who died during the Holocaust.

“Each one would have been a person if not killed,” said Natalie Bolduc, an eighth-grader at Dirigo Middle School who is participating in the collection of 1.5 million pull tabs as part of her math class.

The students of teacher Sarah Irish are trying to gather pull tabs equal to the number of children killed during the Holocaust.

Irish’s math class is one part of the school’s unit on the Holocaust. In other classes, students are learning history, reading literature or studying ethics, all related to the Holocaust.

Irish wanted the youngsters to get a visual picture of just how many people were involved.

The class started with a goal of collecting 15,000 pull tabs, the number of children who were sent to the Terezin Ghetto in Czechoslovakia. That number was achieved within a week, so the class decided to try to gather enough pull tabs to symbolize the total number of children who were killed during the Holocaust.

Right now, she estimates the class has about 750,000. About 90,000 have been counted and bagged in increments of 2,000. The tabs will be donated to the Kora Shrine Temple to help with its charities.

“We’ll never be able to fully understand what they went through, but we want to remember them and respect them,” said Travis Frost, a student from Dixfield. “We knew (the Holocaust) was the killing of the Jews. All these pull tabs represent lives.”

Addy Fuller of Peru helped get the word out that the class was collecting the tabs. She said they’ve notified newspapers, the public access channel, and sent brochures home to parents. She also plans to create posters asking for pull tab donations.

“I didn’t realize what 1.5 million would look like. It’s hard to take in,” she said.

Boxes of counted and uncounted pull tabs are stacked in the corner of the classroom.

Fuller said the class got the idea from a similar project conducted by a group of students in Tennessee where they collected paper clips.

DJ Hutchins, a student from Canton, designed a logo depicting the Star of David, and listing the groups targeted by the Nazis for death: Jews, homosexuals, gypsies.

That logo will be used as part of a documentary a group of 20 students will make about the pull tab collection.

Irish expects to have a member of the Kora Shrine Temple speak to the class about how the organization will use the tabs as well as about the group. She is also looking for a Holocaust survivor who would be willing to speak to her class.

In past years, Irish has had her students compile dots equal to the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust. This year, she thought using pull tabs would more graphically represent the deaths while at the same time provide money for a community service.

Once the 1.5 million pull tabs have been collected, Irish said a celebration will be organized.