Kevelaer, a municipality in the district of Kleve, in North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. The most-visited Catholic pilgrimage location within north-western Europe, with more than 800,000 pilgrims visiting every year to honour the Virgin Mary. The shrine of Mary, "Comforter of the Afflicted," had its origins in the Thirty Years War (1618- 1648), which had devastated the region. In 1642, Heinrich Busman, a merchant, obtained an engraving of Mary pictured in front of the city of Luxembourg, and installed it in a shrine at the crossing of the Cologne-Amsterdam trade route. In 1654, the Chapel of Mercy (pictured on this card), a hexagonal structure, was erected to house the picture (inset top right); the image has remained in that shrine.