Being part of The 70,273 project...

Some time at the beginning of the year I took my courage together and acted on something I had been thinking about for a while as I kept seeing posts on Sandy Snowden's blog about her involvement in The 70,273 Project initiated by Jeanne Hewell-Chambers. The topic of Nazi atrocities has been a constant in my life since I was about 12 or 13 years old, and I have never found it easy to be German. (That is most certainly also a major reason for my involvement with the refugees in Germany today - I had always asked myself how I would have behaved back then...)
So initially after reading about the project on Sandy's blog I had hesitations about getting in touch with Jeanne (and considered myself too busy, too), but early this year I finally did get in touch with her and wrote an article on the project for the German Patchwork Guild's magazine.

The turn-around of the numbers is my fault...
March edition of the German Patchwork Guild's
magazine, and the article on the 70,273 Project.

She asked me whether I wanted to be an ambassador for the project in Germany, and as I was just taking over the post of International Representative for the German Patchwork Guild, I agreed and have been involved in the project since. I have made blocks myself, received blocks from others which I am now assembling to be put together.

bookeeping of blocks, numbers, names of contributors...

I hope I will find some volunteer to do the piecing. I am willing to do longarm piecing, and have put the first complete top on the machine, which I received from a group in Kassel.

Another top is waiting in line, which Jeanne gave me when I was visiting her in August. Because my son and I included Jeanne on our trip when we were visiting friends. And we had a very good time with her and her lovely husband, "The Engineer". Thank you so much for hosting us, Jeanne and Andy!

I just fell in love with the location of Jeanne's house, right on a waterfall, and slept wonderfully in a bedroom that opens right onto the stream.

Jeanne set me to work on blocks, and showed me quilts that were already finished.

Being part of this project does something to you. I have been feeling that, although I wasn't quite clear about whether it was part of my "current state of mind anyway". A recent e-mail exchange with a woman another town in Germany who is also contributing blocks to the project, and her write-up about how the involvement in the project is affecting her, has made me realize that, however. Yes, it is partly due to my current state of mind, with the refugees and the political situation in Germany overall. But it is also due to this project.
Not only do I 'see' red x-s at unexpected moments, such as these cookie cutters at a sale in a store.

And I see them in order to have a chance encounter with Chantal from France, on the shuttle bus in Ste. Marie-aux-Mines. (See them on her name tag?)

Being part in this project gives me an even stronger awareness of injustice, human rights, unfairness, etc. That in itself doesn't necessarily make one a happier person. But certainly one who keeps on fighting against injustice for longer than one ever thought one could stand it...