Memorial "Verlorene Hände" for the victims of the NS-Euthanasie Telfs

The historian Lena Burgstaller discovered in her master's thesis that the victims of the NS euthanasia program in Telfs had no public visibility. The market municipality took up her suggestion to erect a memorial. It financed the installation and lighting, while the entrepreneur Arthur Thöni provided the materials. The students of class 9t of the technical branch at Gymnasium Telfs created designs with their teacher Urban Sterzinger during the school year 2021/22. Class 7t realized the project "Verlorene Hände" ("Lost Hands") with the help of teachers Herbert Waldhart and Markus Weber, which the community had selected from the designs. The memorial was inaugurated by Dean Peter Scheiring on 28.7.2023 at Eduard-Wallnöfer-Platz. State Governor Anton Mattle, Mayor Christian Härting, and Lena Burgstaller gave speeches. The object consists of a rusty steel plate with 16 hands, representing the Telfs victims. The idea of using hands was developed by the youth after they had seen the scratch marks on the walls of the gas chamber. The cut-out hands symbolize the gap left by the victims in the Telfs community, while the rough surface structure of the object symbolizes their struggle for survival. Two information boards complement the memorial, one listing the names of the victims with their birth and death dates.