In current day Germany you will be moved out of your grave and the plot resold after 25 years. Australia refers to it as renewable tenure. When the time is up, family members can renew tenure or allow the site to be used to accommodate another coffin; how nicely put. My Mom found this out to her great surprise and dismay on a trip to East Germany in the late 1990’s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall. She went to Neumark to see her good friend Marianne Popp, who she knew from her days in Neumark right after the war. Marianne is also my godmother. The cemetery where her parents and sister, my own grandparents and aunt, are buried is right across the street from Marianne’s house.
For many years my mother sent money for maintenance of the plots and the purchase of flowers for the graves. On this visit, they went to the flower shop where my mother purchases nice bouquets for the graves. My grandmother died in 1972 in West Germany and her cremated body was transported back to the east for burial with her family. So my mother had never personally seen her own mother’s gravesite, but she had previously visited the graves of her father and sister, Liesbeth. It was all just so very cumbersome trying to get into the old East Germany as a capitalist American with travel restrictions and hoorendous visa requirements. And for people who once actually escaped the country, there was always a threat they might not get back out. Wasn’t much easier for West Germans to visit. East Bloc inhabitants were ‘free’ to visit other East Bloc countries, but your vacations were usually done in conjunction with a youth camp, or a workers camp on the sea, so some other structured organizational entity. You didn’t just get in your car and say “Let’s go to the Black Sea for a long weekend!”
Tag: cemeteries
Centuries of Bodies Ch 6 pg 15
It is striking, in retrospect, that not all cemeteries here have been destroyed. The Jewish cemetery was destroyed before the war by Germans and a plaque is all that marks the site on the north edge of Heydekrug. But throughout the area it is clear certain cemeteries were targeted for destruction. Not all cemeteries containing Germans had to be expunged. The effort was not directed at all religious sites. The British and American pilots at the prisoner of war camp have graves undisturbed; the Catholics in the city are safe, but all traces of German Lutherans are gone. The only acknowledgement they get is from the wind blowing over their bones now scattered between the heather.
As I traveled through Europe I’d often wonder that any cemeteries were left at all. There were those troops marching back and forth, pillaging and plundering, two thousand years history, revenge and retaliation, tanks rolling back and forth, bombs smashing the landscape, mass graves. There can’t be a piece of land untouched by violence in some way. Or, on the other hand, think of all the hundreds of thousands of people that died in Europe. Doesn’t it seem there should be a lot more cemeteries? Where are all those bodies from all the centuries before?
What’s Behind Coffin Number 3? Ch 6 pg 14
Some of the vandalism did fall to the local inhabitants. As a result of shortages on construction material they pilfered the metal fences and grave markers to use on their farms. Others stole anything that might be of value to sell – good granite and marble lay around for the taking. And then there were the actual graves, the bodies and what lay with them. Grave robbers looked for jewels, gold teeth, anything that maybe had a resale value. They dumped out the bodies and plundered the coffins. Maybe it is good that the forest now covers what once was the old cemetery of Gnieballen. Perhaps what remains now lies there in peace, reclaimed, never again to be disturbed.
These tactics of abolishing cemeteries not only served to destroy and cleanse the land of previous inhabitants, but it served as a warning to the current liberated citizens. The Soviets were know as atheists, but is it right to say that as a result this made them more brutal say than the Spanish Inquisition, or the Puritans burnings witches in Salem , Massachusetts? The degree of brutality or savagery is rather irrelevant. It does however seem a rather unique approach to ethnic cleansing by getting rid of those already dead. It perplexes me, this act of taking out vengeance on bodies long dead. More than anything it violates a long standing human taboo about corpses, for whatever reason.
Yet there is something that puzzles me yet, something relating to the current day. So many Germans go back, so many want to reclaim their land, so many have formed these pseudo political organizations to take back lost lands. Do none of them want to ‘rebury’ the dead? Is there no one to even gather the bones in an act of respect for ancestors, burying the past in a deeper sense?
Recycling Cemeteries Ch 6 pg 13
After October 1944 suddenly all these traditions, including old Baltic practices, were destroyed and the cemeteries vandalized. Perhaps more so than in other Soviet occupied areas, Klein Litauen presented an unusual combination of anti-German feeling, anti-Christian sentiment, and a need for revenge on both the part of the Lithuanians and the Russians. However the Lithuanians generally are Catholics, and it is the major religion of the country today. The cemeteries, full of all the heavy symbolism and taboos regarding death and desecration, resurrection, traditional burial practices, lure of riches beneath the ground, offered an opportunity to truly destroy the ancestors of the vanquished enemy. This is a familiar theme throughout history, something very primal to desecrate the dead, especially that of one’s enemies. And this they did.
In order to stop major flooding of the Memel River, the Soviet authorities needed to raise the damn at Kaukehmen. The material they used to do this was easily found in the big, still in use, cemeteries in Kaukehmen. An eyewitness recounts how everywhere there lay rotted body parts and at the damn were all sorts of other grave contents piled up and sticking out through the dirt.
The authorities also found plenty of other uses for the cemeteries. Road construction was another pressing need, which is what was done with the cemetery in Gruenheide. Problem was, when you drove along this street you could hear the wheels cracking the bones and in the ditches you could see human skulls lying about.
Where Did the Cemeteries Go? Ch 6 pg 12
Later when I was back in the U.S., I wondered why we couldn’t find even a trace of many of these old country cemeteries, especially as there was the big Catholic cemetery in the town. It was intact and still in use. Was it religion or revenge or a combination of the two that was the determining factor as to which cemetery survived?
Over the years there were rumors among displaced East Prussians on what happened to the old German cemeteries of their homeland. I thought about these rumors that claimed Lithuanians dug up cemeteries ravaging the corpses for jewels and gold fillings. Maybe there were some cases of this since the throughout history the poor pictured the ruling class with much more wealth than they had in reality. And of course they might well bury some of those valuable possessions with the dead. In the hard days after the war, I wouldn’t be surprised if some opportunists did resort to grave robbing due to the desperate circumstances they found themselves in. But I could never have imagined what actually happened in these cemeteries.
Doing some research on the internet I discovered a publication specifically about the cemeteries of East Prussia. I found it in the Annaberger Annalen, a yearbook of Lithuanian and German-Lithuania relationships. Martynas Purvinas writes in great detail about the destruction of the cemeteries in Memelland after 1944, using eyewitness accounts. This area is also known as Kleinlitauen or Preussiche-Litauen. He maintains that what is unique to this area is the evolution of a Baltic death cult interwoven with the Lutheran practices. Instead of one central cemetery, some cities had several cemeteries so that cemeteries could be located closer to the individual families and they could actively maintain the grave plots. Some of the families went so far as to keep burial sites in the courtyard of their house and that way kept ancestors a part of their daily lives. This didn’t seem to be the practice in the villages around my mother’s farm; one cemetery for each village was enough, unless someone was secretly burying people behind the barn, but it was hard to do anything in such tight village settings without all your neighbors knowing about it.
Your Epitaph
Epitaphs are surprisingly absent from the old gravestones. No one has words of wisdom to leave behind. Often they can be witty reminders of our mortality like the famous: “As I have passed so shall yee.” I’m amazed that I haven’t run across one yet among these old cemeteries.
Photographs are mounted on some of the tombstones. This option appears more common for couples but is not often seen for individuals. So we can see the deceased in the years before their death. Why not instead place photos of people in the prime of their life? Wouldn’t that be a nicer way to remember them? Certainly a wedding photo to match their wedding date, perhaps would be a nice touch.
Wives continue to outlive their husbands by many years. But I see some new trends. There are women with a couple of married names listed on their stone, unlike earlier times where it was the man who had a couple of spouses. And there is a foreboding that women are now starting to die before their husbands; they are well past their childbirth years so that’s not the cause.
While reading tombstones we consider what is on them to be a reflection of the person buried there. However, markers generally are selected by the surviving family – it is they who decide how the dead will be remembered. So I correct myself in some assumptions I make, and my perspective changes depending on who orders the marker. Very few people have the foresight to carefully consider the last words, to remain for all eternity.
It all give cause for reflection on how one wants to be remembered by the occasional person wandering through the graveyard. It is a last chance for immortality, provided the tombstone is well sited and of material not easily eroded.
Too Much Info
The next major change relating to markers occurs late in the 20th century. Married date is clearly now vital information for the marker! Often the date is placed with intertwined rings, or a heart. “Together Forever” is a favorite phrase used near the marriage date. These are couples who experienced the Depression, a world war, and the prosperity of the 50’s. Nicknames now appear, and engravings of hobbies and interests primarily addressing those of the men. As for the women, well, they are busy cooking, cleaning and childbearing so how can they have time for hobbies.
Bible verses in their entirety now proliferate. Did society truly become more religious? It is perhaps put on as a talisman, to help the dead gain entry in the afterlife? Or is it now cheaper to have more text due to new stone carving methods.
These markers evolved to become very busy with loads of text; my transcription of the markers takes longer. I need to expand the column on my spreadsheet so that I can see it as I type all this information into the little column.
Someone came up with the idea of using the back of the tombstone. Just isn’t enough space ont he front for all this important detail. We’ve got landscape scenes carved on the front, but we can add even more information on the back– names of children and beloved grandchildren. Are there granchildren out there not beloved? Entire stanzas of poetry appear on the back, obscure references and sayings which might be meaningful to family but will puzzle subsequent generations. It is there for all eternity, but will it mean anything to another generation?
Another recent change is that the symbols we use show us the possessions of the deceased. We are materialistic. Maybe we want to take it with us. I’m reminded of the old Pharaohs of Egypt – they did the same thing with their pyramids. Add the beloved possessions and items to help manuver in the afterlife. We now provide a hand of cards with a full house, a sports car, gun and rod, nature scene, needle and thread, football. People choose to display the life they left behind rather than focus on what happens after death, or what they think happens.
Great scenes are now carved on many of the tombstones. These are big stones; a single one is the size of a monument that previously represented an entire family, two generations, from years past. A lot of these scenes are idyllic, nature scenes – forest, lake, evergreens, deer. Our vision of heaven has changed. Our death idyl is a weekend up north, for all eternity. One monument even has a sign carved on the back, typical of those hanging at the driveway entrance to someone’s cottage up north. Are we trying to recreate an afterlife for ourselves, one we most want to find ourselves in. No one puts a picture of a factory or an office building, or angels at the gates of heaven.
A Woman’s Role in the Cemetery
Attitudes do change over years and these early tombstones reflect the preeminence of men. Everyone else in the family is referred to in relation to the male patriarch, particularly the woman. She is defined as his wife, wife of, placed for all eternity next to this man. Her maiden name with which she had her first identity and connects with her ancestors is not typically noted.
The children are identified by daughter of, or son of, then stating both parents’ names. Sometimes there is not even a name for the child, just children of or infant. There really are not nearly enough markers for all the children they were born in these early years. Sometimes the grief of parents is palatable, as the child’s marker carved with a dead dove draped across the top.
There are a couple of cases where the grave of the husband has graves of two wives next to him. Childbearing was hard and accounted for most of the deaths of women. Sometimes a child is nearby whose birth coincides with the death of the mother. Generally though, the women far outlive the men, if they can just make it past bearing children particularly during the 1800’s.
There are so many stories here – one family has the same death dates, or it might be father and child, or both children. Was there an epidemic or perhaps a fire? The child is buried here but not the parents, one spouse but not the other. Ours has long been a country with a high level of mobility, continually searching for a new frontier, a better life.
Soviet Collectives Ch6/pg 8
One day long ago before the War, my mother and her sister were in the Gnieballen cemetery. They came upon an extra stone that marked a grave near the family sites. When they returned home they asked Mama about who was buried there. She gave them the usual ‘don’t ask questions’ response. Sometime later, they were again at that same cemetery. They went to check on that curious marker they saw at their last visit. It was gone! A mystery! How could a grave marker disappear? Even more mysterious is that later they found it stashed in the attic of their own home. My mother always suspected it was the grave site of a child her mother had out-of-wedlock after WWI, before she married Julius. This child was the result of a brief liaison with a soldier passing through the area in World War I. There were several fierce battles in this area, notably in August 1917 as described in Solzhenitsyn’s novel of the same name. The grave and the baby were never spoken of, but so much of what occurred was never discussed. Family secrets, shame, disappointments.
After parking the car properly and securely, we got out and walked into the woods on the hunt for the Redetzki family cemetery of Gnieballen. Mom has a vague idea of where this cemetery was, but the woods back then were not as dense and widespread as they are now. It seems most all of this forest growth has occurred since the war, at least according to the topographic maps I have to guide me in my quest.
The Soviets in their drive to establish big collective farms effectively put an end to the European practice of small, farms scattered across the countryside. It disappeared from the former communist countries as they were organized into collectives owned by the state. In the U.S., the small towns began disappearing with the advent of farm mechanization and the automobile. The depression and dust bowl problems quickened this process. But the Russians actively destroyed the villages in part to obliterate traces of the previous cultures, and mainly to facilitate the collective system. They didn’t foster independence, you worked together for the greater good, or that was the dogma they put forth. They eliminated houses in areas where there were housing shortages. People forced out of homes, out of farm plots, forced out of means to support at least themselves. The great plan looked good on paper but in practice was a dismal failure.
Get the Grave Ready, It’s My Birthday
Many shy away from old cemeteries because the sunken areas remind them too much of what happens to the dead; they should reconsider. These may actually be the less toxic cemetery sites. The embalming process, along with coffins made of various metal and processed wood products, are actually creating a more toxic environment. The old cemeteries with simple wooden coffins and unembalmed bodies deteriorate more naturally, although you have to ensure that they are buried deeply. This could be the next eco-movement, to have an ecologically sound funeral. Actually embalming is not a requirement for burial; it is desired by funeral directors, most of whom will not allow a body to be held for viewing if not embalmed. It could be kept refrigerated, but it will be difficult to find a funeral home willing to work with a family on this. Can’t bring your own ice.
Typing data into spreadsheets gives a lot of time to notice patterns in the data. Most common in the 1800’s is to state the date of death and the age in years, months and days. Did the monument marker have a special calendar to calculate the number of months and days from date of birth? Occasionally ‘born’ was noted but ‘died’ was the significant fact for a marker.
Through the process of typing in birth and death dates, I notice that often the people die around their birthday. Eerie is how many people die on or before their birth date. This is eerie and I could develop a real phobia about this as I get older.
Common first names change over the years. Clarence is not found before the early 1900’s on markers. While Sarah is once again popular, what happened to Maude, Dorothy, Beatrice and Gladys? And Betty is pretty popular in mid 19th century, as are Lloyd and Raymond.
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