It won an Oscar and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. At 1.3 million square
feet, it would take up almost half the office space in the new One World Trade Center tower in New
York. It received a “Save America’s Treasures” federal grant to preserve it for future
generations.

When the AIDS Memorial Quilt was first displayed on the National Mall in October 1987, it
consisted of 1,920 panels. Now, the quilt is too large to display in its entirety. Parts of it are
being shown throughout the capital this week during the International AIDS Conference here.

Each of its 3-by-6-foot panels — about the size of a human grave — tells the story of a person’s
life with the smallest biographical details: favorite pieces of clothing, stuffed animals, poems,
paintings, photographs.

But sewn together, the quilt’s 48,000 panels convey the enormity of an epidemic that has killed
hundreds of thousands of Americans during three decades — and millions more people worldwide.

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NOW the ENTIRE quilt can be viewed online see the  thousands of panels! Enlarge and scroll around to view them.