Students at an all-girls secondary school have put their artistic skills to good use by designing a quilt in remembrance of disabled men, women and children killed by the Nazis.

The memorial project at Connaught School for Girls in Connaught Road, Leytonstone is designed to educate students about the 70,273 physically and mentally disabled people murdered between January 1940 and August 1941 in the Aktion T4 programme.

If Nazi doctors deemed a person “unfit” or an “economic burden on society” they would mark their medical chart with a red ‘X’. If two out of three doctors who read the file wrote an ‘X’ on it the person’s fate was sealed and most were murdered within hours.

Students gathered blocks of white fabric to represent innocence and the medical chart and stitched a red ‘XX’ onto each square to represent a victim.

A school spokesman said: “The work of our students and staff helps to remember those innocent victims.

“Our quilt will be displayed in Rochester Cathedral from January to March 2018 to help mark National Holocaust Memorial Day.

“Blocks and quilts will be on display throughout the world, in 100 countries.”