In Holland there is no real ‘death’ culture, or I should better say death cults. When someone dies it is most of the time over… By that I mean that it is not really common to visit the grave often, to place all kinds of pictures and candles, to have a meal at the grave etc. non-religious people and Catholics do this more often. But Protestant graveyards are mostly sober, forgotten - empty- places. The stones have bible verses, but you don’t see crosses or statues. This graveyard has some historical status, so there are graves from the 1850’s otherwise the graves are cleaned out and re-used…. The country is to small to keep all the graves, I learned that it is common to occupy one grave for 3 coffins on top of each other (non family), if there would have been a cult around death this likely would have been impossible.
I think that death is one of the few taboos we have, people don’t easily talk about the topic, when someone dies, he will be buried and quickly forgotten from public life. For this reason I think it is an extra shock when a person dies….
That is the reason, I figure, a graveyard like this in the centre of town is decaying, nobody feels it should be further maintained.. This picture shows how the stones are ‘sinking’ into the ground.
