Malke Yablonsky a”h produced dozens of magnificent quilts while simultaneously raising thirteen children and running a successful fabric store. Her moving “Holocaust Quilt” traces the progress of her mother’s family through the European churban to the shores of America and beyond. It’s a magnificent work of art that tells the story of her family’s triumph.
I had been told Mrs. Yablonsky wasn’t well when I paid her a visit last August in Flatbush. She lay on a sofa frail and barely able to speak surrounded by several of her daughters who helped fill in the blanks of her story.
The comfortable roomy house bears witness to a deeply creative nature: art work by Jewish and Mexican artists on the walls quilts mounted on walls and covering coffee tables a William Morris–style wallpaper of pink peonies on a navy background. The wall beside the staircase is covered floor to ceiling by a decoupage collage of literally thousands of family photos.
“The family pictures were just lying in boxes” Malke’s daughter Miryam Lea says “so my mother decided to put them in a place where we’d all see them.”
Even the kitchen table — a lengthy affair appropriate for a megasized family — is surrounded by dinette chairs whose backs are covered in homemade cotton slipcovers a merry print of red and brown chickens in their roosts.
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