Another exploration of Düsseldorf’s Nordfriedhof, in the twilight of the evening hour and short before rain set in.
The graveyard is the closest nearby place, where I can enjoy a bit of calm and solitude. There are wild parts, reminiscent of English landscape gardens, which occur quite magical to the senses. On the other hand, the majority of graves is fostered with an accuracy resembling that of miniature baroque gardens. The ballast bed trend is also taking over people’s last place of rest. There are exceptions, with lush planting gone wild, such as the grave covered in columbine, which is pictured above.
The caretakers seem to employ ecological concepts and care for biodiversity. E.g. I found an abandoned sandy part, previously covered in black nightshade, and now filled with fragrant phacelia, which is a soil conditioner and attracts a multitude of pollinating insects, not only honey bees. There are bee hives being implemented on this graveyard. There is a small pond visited by various water fowl as well grey herons and I spotted at least one large bird of prey, a common buzzard. The entrance on one side smells heavily like fox. There is a huge population of rabbits digging burrows all across the graveyard, which is probably not to the liking of all bereaved, but partly amusing to observe.
There is an abundance of large and impressive family grave sites as well as memorials for the victims of WWI and WWII. The annexed stonemason does an admirable job with the restoration of the historical grave sites.
It is easy to become enticed by the romanticism conveyed through the abundance and sheer beauty of the place and its funerary art.
As much as I am occupied with the topic of death and the dead, I am part of a generation that will likely not enjoy the luxury of such post-mortem vanity. In truth, it has always been only a small part of humanity to take part in such luxury. Further, the fate of today’s youth is likely, to dissolve into spirit and not leaving much traces of physical existence behind. The larger mankind grows, the less space it will have for its exponentially growing amount of bodies. Neither are the monuments built over decades to last forever. However, they help to implement and strengthen the status of a few over a certain period.
2 centuries of opulent European grave culture, between the modern world and the past, between ego obsessions and spiritual ideals, between emotions and the need for detachment. A boundary between, and – perhaps most importantly – a place for old trees and a green lung for an ever expanding urban space.
Wiebke Rost 