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Passing on the Comfort
The quilts in this exhibit once sheltered refugees far from home. Everyone who slept under them had lost something: a house, loved ones, trust. The quilts wrapped these wanderers in warmth as they prepared to rebuild their lives.
For years, my only contact with the wartime experience was through those few worn quilts that were left behind after all our guests took with them whatever they needed. I sorted my memories as I folded and unfolded the quilts, telling them my unspoken tales.
-- An Keuning-Tichelaar
In the 1940s, An Keuning-Tichelaar, a Dutch Mennonite woman sheltered hungry children, Jewish fugitives and Resistance workers from the Nazis, and, after the war, Mennonites fleeing the Soviet Union. The quilts were stitched by women in Canada and the United States to be distributed to families and communities in war-torn Europe after the war. Today, the quilts stand as silent witnesses to the horrors of war and to people unafraid to make choices shaped by courage and compassion.
Working with the Mennonite Central Committee and the International Menno Simons Center, Riverhill is developing two versions of the exhibition to travel in the Netherlands and the United States. The Dutch version of the exhibit opened in Witmarsum, the Netherlands, in June, 2008. The US version, including quilts, video installation, and education materials for families, will be available for travel in fall, 2008. For more information on the US version including quilts, video installation and educational materials for schools, youth groups and families, visit passingonthecomfort.blogspot.com.
Credits
::Panel design for Passing on the Comfort by Silvertop Graphics
::Visitors at the opening of the exhibit, Witmarsum, the Netherlands
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