Poor grave

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Poor grave is a name used in the past for a simply designed burial place in a cemetery , often without grave markings , which was used for the burial of poor or destitute deceased. In the past, poor graves were often carried out as community graves. In the 21st century, the term is no longer officially used for ethical and social reasons and mostly spoken of a social burial or an ex officio burial (public order burial ).

Many of today's respected artists died impoverished and were buried in poor graves. Often the dead were reburied in later times and the graves are now cared for as honorary graves .

historical development

In the Roman Empire , the tombs were often arranged hierarchically on roads outside the settlements. As a rule, cremation graves were created, in which, depending on the social position, an urn vessel with the appropriate grave goods was buried. From the 2nd century. AD. Also were burials of wealthy people in sarcophagi made. This costly type of burial was denied to the poor for a long time. Since the early Middle Ages, the poor have been buried in a simple grave with the least possible financial outlay, in a simple coffin or wrapped in cloth and without their own tombstone. The burials in poor graves were carried out by relatives themselves or by a commissioned grave digger. If the burial took place in a poor grave, no fees had to be paid for the services of the Offermann or organist or for the gravedigger.

Graves of the poor on Hart Island, New York, circa 1890

In many communities, so-called poor and misery cemeteries were set up outside the localities, which were often located on the areas of former leprosy and plague cemeteries . Even strangers, such as pilgrims who were not known by name , suicides , the executed and the unbaptized, found their final resting place in poor graves. Later, the churchyards and, from the 19th century, the municipal cemeteries were started to create separate areas on the entire site in which inexpensive burials could be carried out. The graves - often laid out as collective graves - were often not marked at all or only marked by a simple wooden cross, the rest period was shorter in many cemeteries for the poor graves than for the other graves.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, many communities have not been buried in separate areas in order to respect the dignity of the deceased and not to socially marginalize or stigmatize their relatives . At the cemetery I the Jerusalem and New parish remembers thanks to the commitment of Joachim Ritzkowsky since 2002, the "grave with many names" of deceased homeless .

While in the past mainly the deceased whose names were unknown, suicides, victims of disasters and epidemics were buried anonymously in the graves of the poor, today an anonymous burial is not only an expression of the lack of financial means for a funeral, but is also used for ideological reasons Chosen as a forest burial or burial at sea . Today, a social burial is often carried out in a row grave or in an anonymous or semi-anonymous grave.

Todays situation

Germany

Grave cross from an anonymous children's grave, Melaten cemetery

In the past few decades the proportion of so-called "poor burials" has increased again. This is due to demographic change , the deletion of the death benefit from the list of benefits of the statutory health insurance in 2004 and the increased costs for a funeral. Sometimes the relatives are financially unable to pay for the funeral from their own resources. Between 2005 and 2011, the number of recipients of benefits for social burials in Germany increased almost two-and-a-half times from 7,695 to 19,200. The relatives can - after proving the need according to § 74 SGB ​​XII - submit an application to the responsible social welfare office for the cost of a social burial to be reimbursed. The social welfare office can, however, refuse to assume the costs if the funeral can be disputed from the death grant claims of the deceased or from the estate .

The social welfare office pays the costs for a local, simple funeral that respects the dignity of the deceased. In general, the fees for acquiring or extending the right to use a row grave site for burial or cremation , services of the undertaker , costs of cremation for cremations , fees for opening and closing the grave, use of the funeral hall , costs for one simple coffin or funeral urn , organ playing and initial horticultural design of the grave site. The costs for a wooden cross to identify the grave site by name must be borne by the social welfare office in any case, whereas the costs for a stone grave are only covered if the local cemetery statutes prescribe the construction of such a grave. If the costs of a customary burial are not exceeded, another form of burial, such as burial at sea or in a burial site that is not identified by name, such as a funeral forest, can also be borne by the social welfare office.

In Germany, the municipalities themselves determine the amount of the costs to be reimbursed by the social welfare office for a social burial, which can also vary widely within a federal state . While only € 588 was paid in Düsseldorf in 2012 , the maximum reimbursement rate in Cologne was € 1,465. In 2019, funeral homes in Berlin were reimbursed a flat rate of 750 euros plus costs for the cemetery and crematorium for social burials.

If a burial is initiated ex officio by the public order office , for example if a deceased does not leave any relatives behind or if the relatives refuse to pay the costs for the funeral, this is also referred to as a public order burial .

In 2013, the municipalities in Germany spent 60.61 million euros on social burials. In 2018 there were around 1,500 social burials in Berlin, which cost around two million euros in total.

Austria

In Austria, too, people speak of a social grave instead of a poor grave . There used to be, for example, on the central cemetery in Vienna , a private burial ground , which the paupers 'graves was reserved for the so-called paupers' cemetery . Today, such graves are laid on vacant grave sites in the back of the cemetery with a rest period of 10 years. Here, too, social graves are simple grave sites, which are characterized by wooden crosses for identification by name. In some municipalities in Austria, since 2009 only cremations of basic income support recipients have been borne by the social welfare office, unless cremations are not permitted for religious reasons.

Czech Republic

Due to the strained household system of the municipalities, undertakers also carried out social burials in the Czech Republic or in anonymous urn fields without providing the graves with an appropriate grave mark.

Cemetery facilities

Cemetery of the Nameless , Vienna

In the past, poor people were buried in cemetery fields outside the villages. In churchyards, the graves of the poor were mostly found along the cemetery wall or in a part of the cemetery far away from the church.

Many of the burials of people not known by name were also carried out in simple graves, some of which were in their own cemeteries or in their own areas in large cemetery complexes. Well-known examples are the Viennese cemetery of the nameless , where people who drowned in the Danube are buried, the Grunewald-Forst cemetery in Berlin and the cemeteries of the homeless on the German coast on Sylt , Amrum , Neuwerk , Spiekeroog , Pellworm , Helgoland and Trischen . Simple tombs with a similar design were also laid out in the Second World War for bomb victims, soldiers and sometimes also for victims of fascist tyranny. In many cities and municipalities, these grave fields were continued and cared for as honorary graves in the post-war period.

Personalities who were buried in a poor grave (selection)

Vincent and Theo van Gogh's grave

literature

  • Reiner Sörries: Large encyclopedia of funeral and cemetery culture. Dictionary of Sepulchral Culture . 3 volumes, published by the Central Institute for Sepulchral Culture Kassel, Fachhochschul-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main
  • Reiner Sörries: Peace and quiet: the cultural history of the cemetery. Butzon & Bercker, 2009, ISBN 978-3-7666-1316-5 .
  • Dominic Akyel: The economization of piety. The change in the funeral market in Germany . Campus, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-593-39878-5 .
  • Ronald Uden: What to do with the dead ?: Dignity between disposal and eternity. Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2006, ISBN 3-579-08009-1 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Vogts: The old Cologne cemeteries . In: Rheinische Friedhöfe . No. 1 . Cologne 1932, p. 9 .
  2. ↑ Honor last. Retrieved July 25, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Almost 20,000 families do not have enough money for funerals , Rheinische Post , January 6, 2020, accessed on January 7, 2020.
  4. ↑ Ingrid Laux, Bernhard Laux: Farewell - Burial - Mourning: Designing the time of parting with dignity . 1st edition. Walhalla, 2015, ISBN 978-3-8029-0974-0 , p. 133 .
  5. ↑ Social burial guide. In: Consumer initiative funeral culture. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
  6. ↑ Municipalities save on social burials. on: bestattungen.de , September 26, 2012, accessed on December 11, 2015.
  7. ↑ a b c Lonely death: not uncommon in Berlin. Retrieved July 25, 2020 .
  8. ↑ Michael Scheidel: The fear of a poor grave. (No longer available online.) In: Frankfurter Allgemeine. October 12, 2013, archived from the original on December 22, 2015 ; accessed on December 13, 2015 .
  9. ↑ More and more social burials: Germans lack the money for a funeral. on: wiwo.de , February 8, 2015, accessed December 11, 2015.
  10. ^ Central cemetery - poor cemetery. at: viennatouristguide.at , accessed on December 7, 2015.
  11. ↑ Ingrid Brodnig : Only death is free. In: The time. November 2, 2006, accessed December 12, 2015 .
  12. ↑ No grave decorations for the poor. In: mein district.at. March 31, 2010, accessed December 12, 2015 .
  13. ↑ Poor funerals: rest gently and cheaply. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. November 23, 2013, accessed December 11, 2015 .