European Mennonite Voluntary Service 1948-1972

Europe at the end of World War II was badly in need of constructive idealism. This book tells the story of one key effort to provide it, the Mennonite-related work camp movement. Hitler’s Nazi regime left the European people wounded, traumatized, and demoralized. The victims of this destruction thus were receptive for any indication of hope to fill the vacuum. This is the context of the eagerness of the young people to join in the work camp movement.

Thus by 1950, for example, when the Mennonite Central Committee international voluntary service office in Frankfurt announced its summer program, a flood of applications arrived. Letters appealing for help in needy projects which had resulted from the damage of war poured in as well.

The result, according to one camper quoted in the book: “We had torn down brick walls, cleaned the brick, hauled out the rubble, leveled the floors, and cemented. As we left for home we could see our memorial, accomplished for the good of the school [and] bring the nations of the world together into a more complete understanding.”

European Mennonite Voluntary Service includes careful yet accessible analysis and reflection; extended personal accounts of what the EMVS experience meant for those who served; photos, notes, and index.