Gerresheimer Waldfriedhof
The Gerresheim forest cemetery is located on Quadenhofstrasse, in the east of the Gerresheim district of Düsseldorf , embedded in the forest area between Gerresheim and the city of Erkrath in the Mettmann district. Today it covers 33 hectares and is over 100 years old.
A total of around 60,000 funerals have taken place in the Gerresheimer Friedhof since it opened. There are around 20,000 burial sites, of which around 18,000 are currently occupied.
history
A few decades after the growth phase of the district in the second half of the 19th century, the old cemetery, located within the formerly independent municipality of Gerresheim on today's Dreherstrasse, no longer had sufficient capacity and was therefore closed. An extension of the old cemetery was not possible due to the funeral order, which prohibited new cemeteries and extensions to cemeteries in inhabited areas. The municipality of Gerresheim therefore acquired the property on Taubenberg for 22,980 Reichsmarks.
The forest cemetery was opened on October 10, 1906. The first funeral took place there on October 13, 1906.
The cemetery had to be expanded several times. The extensions were initially carried out along Quadenhofstrasse. When this possibility was exhausted, the cemetery was extended further along the Gerresheimer heights into the forest heights. The maximum height of the plateau today is 120 meters above sea level .
As the way from the chapel to the new burial place required more and more vertical meters, the second chapel was built in the upper part of the cemetery in 1966 .
Special buildings and facilities
Fields of honor and war memorial
Two special fields of honor have been set up for the victims of the Second World War :
- A field of honor for the local war victims with a war memorial for the citizens of Gerresheim who died in the world wars
- Another field of honor for the Russian war dead.
Upper chapel
The upper chapel was designed in 1966 according to the plans of the architect Hans Junghans . Their architecture is functional, but does not follow the brutalist trend that was widespread at the time , only the idea of simplicity. The interior has been optimized from an acoustic point of view.
Honorary graves
Some important Gerresheimer personalities have graves of honor in the forest cemetery:
- the resistance fighter Theodor Andresen
- the Mayor of Gerresheim Otto Bender
- the founder of the Kieferklinik Christian Bruhn
- the writer Anton Fahne
- the resistance fighter and Düsseldorf honorary citizen Aloys Odenthal with the grave inscription: “Long live freedom! And if she survives us, we can die quietly ”(quotation from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
Special burial fields
The Gerresheimer Waldfriedhof has two special burial options:
- in the tree field
- in the forest field
Tree field
There urns are planted at the roots of individual trees that stand on a lawn. Instead of tombstones, the trees mark the grave site, the names and dates of the deceased can be carved into the granite stones of the path that leads around the tree field. There are several graves on a tree that are used as a row grave or family grave.
Forest field
In the forest field, ash is buried without an urn in the forest floor. The graves are not marked.
The ashes can be buried in the forest field without an urn, provided the deceased has submitted a personal declaration of intent. The ashes are buried in the forest floor at a location chosen by the bereaved in a natural but easily accessible forest section of the cemetery. In this form of burial, the grave is not marked.
Jewish Cemetery
Right next to the Gerresheimer Waldfriedhof there is an old Jewish cemetery where around 50 people were buried between 1925 and 1938.
Transportation
The bus stop is at the lower entrance to the cemetery, but a train enables you to reach the higher part of the cemetery without the arduous ascent.
It can be reached by public transport
- With the bus line 724 - stop Friedhof Gerresheim
- or the underground line U73 or the bus line 737 - Schönaustraße stop , from there it is a 15-minute walk
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Paul Ernst Wentz: Architecture Guide Düsseldorf , Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1975, object no. 62, ISBN 3-7700-0408-6
Coordinates: 51 ° 13 '50.9 " N , 6 ° 52' 8.9" E