70273 Project


















Utah Quilting & Sewing Marketplace

In May 2018 I attended the Utah Quilting & Sewing Marketplace Quilt Show in Sandy, Utah. There, an exhibit called "The70273 Project" captured my attention.

I'm ashamed to admit that I knew very little about the Project's subject. I knew nothing about Hitler's Aktion T4 Program, the two red X's, and the resulting horrors, deception and cruelty that flowed from it. In fact, I didn't really know much about World War II other than my father fought in it and Hitler was defeated.

The 70273 Project Exhibit - Sandy, Utah, May 2018

















The 70273 Project Exhibit opened my eyes. I spent a lot of time looking at all the quilts - not perfect quilts - but with so much more meaning than all the other masterpieces in the show. To think that every block of two X's represented a person was, and still is, beyond my comprehension. Later that night in my hotel room, I spent a lot of time on Google educating myself.

The 70273 Project and what it represents has haunted me ever since.

Aktion T4

At the beginning of World War II, individuals with mental or physical disabilities were targeted for murder in what was called the "Aktion T4," or "euthanasia," program. People with physical and mental disabilities were viewed as useless to society, a threat to Aryan genetic purity, and, ultimately, unworthy of life.

If the person was deemed unfit or an economic burden on society, the doctors placed a red X at the bottom of the evaluation form. Two red X's and the person was killed.

Exposure

During 1940, rumours of what was taking place spread and many Germans withdrew their relatives from asylums and sanatoria to care for them at home, often with great expense and difficulty. 

In some places doctors and psychiatrists co-operated with families to have patients discharged or if the families could afford it, transferred them to private clinics beyond the reach of T4. Other doctors "re-diagnosed" patients so that they no longer met the T4 criteria, which risked exposure when Nazi zealots from Berlin conducted inspections. 

Despite public protests in 1941, the Nazi leadership continued this program in secret throughout the war. About 275,000 to 300,000 people with disabilities were murdered between 1940 and 1945. The number of victims was originally recorded as 70,273, but the German Federal Archives reported that research in the archives of former East Germany indicated that the number of disabled victims in Germany and Austria from 1939 to 1945 was about 200,000 persons and that another 100,000 persons were victims in other European countries.

Victims of Aktion T4 (Official Data from 1985)
(Wikipedia)

T4 Center Period 1940 1941 Total
Grafeneck 20 Jan – Dec 1940 9,839 --- 9,839
Brandenburg 8 Feb – Oct 1940 9,772 --- 9,772
Bernburg 21 Nov 1940 – 30 Jul 1943 --- 8,601 8,601
Hartheim 6 May 1940 – Dec 1944 9,670 8,599 18,269
Sonnenstein Jun 1940 – Sep 1942 5,943 7,777 13,720
Hadamar Jan 1941 – 31 Jul 1942 --- 10,072 10,072
Total by Year 35,224 35,049 70,273

In June 1945 the Hartheim statistics were found. The 39-page brochure contained monthly statistics of the gassing of mentally and physically handicapped patients (called "disinfection") carried out in the six killing centres.

The Hartheim statistics included a page on which it was calculated that "disinfecting 70,273 people with a life expectation of 10 years" had saved food in the value of 141,775,573.80 Reichsmarks.

The legal basis for the program was a 1939 letter from Hitler, not a formal "Führer's decree" with the force of law. Hitler bypassed Conti, the Health Minister and his department, who might have raised questions about the legality of the program and entrusted it to Philipp Bouhler and Karl Brandt.

Nuremberg Documentation Centre Museum





















The wording of the edict in English:

Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are entrusted with the responsibility of extending the authority of physicians, to be designated by name, so that patients who, after a most critical diagnosis, on the basis of human judgment [menschlichem Ermessen], are considered incurable, can be granted mercy death [Gnadentod]. — Adolf Hitler, 1 September 1939— 

The Holocaust

The Holocaust was Nazi Germany’s deliberate, organized, state-sponsored persecution and genocide of approximately six million European Jews. The genocide of the Jews is also sometimes referred to as Shoah, a Hebrew word for “catastrophe.” 

The Nazis also persecuted other groups, perpetrating a genocide:
  • killing more than 250,000 Roma (derogatorily called “gypsies”) 
  • over three million Soviet prisoners of war 
  • nearly two million Poles
  • over 250,000 people with disabilities
  • over 1,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses 
  • hundreds of men accused of homosexuality
  • and other victims

Doctors' Trial
Nuremberg, Germany, Dec 9, 1946 - Aug 20, 1947

Philipp Bouhler was arrested on 10 May 1945 by American troops. He committed suicide on 19 May 1945, while in the U.S. internment camp.

America v. Karl Brandt, et al., commonly known as the Doctors' Trial, was the first of the twelve trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity after the end of World War II. The accused were charged for their involvement in the Aktion T4 programme and Nazi human experimentation.

Karl Brandt was indicted in late 1946 and faced trial along with 22 others in the Doctors' Trial. Karl Brandt and six other defendants were executed by hanging at Landsberg Prison on 2 June 1948.

The 70273 Project

"We can't change history - can't unring that bell - but we can wrap it in kindness". Jeanne Hewell-Chambers

Jeanne is a teacher, a story teller and a fiber artist. Jeanne’s life has also been personally and deeply touched by her mentally disabled sister-in-law. While watching a documentary in January 2016 about the T4 program, Jeanne had an epiphany. She decided to commemorate each one of the 70,273 victims with a quilt block – a block made of white fabric representing the medical form and two red X’s symbolizing the sentence that committed all those innocent people to death.  

It took less than three years. Thanks to countless compassionate people around the world, Jeanne-Hewell-Chambers gathered 70,273 quilt blocks to commemorate each one of those people. Just like the 70,273 people they represent, each block is unique.

The 70273 Project is no longer accepting blocks or quilts. However, help is still needed piecing and quilting the blocks. 

Links and Resources

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousApril 4, 2025 at 4:41 PM

    Thanks for showcasing The 70273 Project which is near and dear to me. My 4 grandparents were Mennonite refugees from Russia and Siberia escaping the ravages of Russia after the Bolsheviks Revolution in 1926 and 1929. I have dear friends who are disabled including my husband.

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