Frankfurt,  Germany,  TRAVEL/HOLIDAYS

Tales from the Graveyard

When I told Daiana I wanted to visit art places, one of the places she suggested was the Frankfurt Main Cemetery at Eckenheimer Landstrasse 194.

“I been there few times and fell in love with the arts, furthermore, I want to find the grave of Arthur Schopenhauer. I had not been able to find it on my previous visits because the cemetery is very large,” she added.  Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher, often called the “philosopher of pessimism,” whose writings influenced later existential philosophy and Freudian psychology.

I agreed right away because it would be great to see the philosopher’s grave not to mention the artistic side of the cemetery.

I find the cemetery very fascinating because of the beauty of memorial art, the various styles and designs, the skills and craftsmanship sculpting a material as hard as granite. Many memorials are truly works of art and what added to the beauty is mother nature itself.

angel

rose

inliebefurmama

hand

hand

littleangel

angel

1800

daiana

The Frankfurt Main Cemetery (German: Hauptfriedhof) is the largest cemetery in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was opened in 1828. The cemetery is located directly adjacent to two Jewish cemeteries, the Old Jewish Cemetery (opened together with the Main Cemetery in 1828) and the New Jewish Cemetery (opened in 1928), and together they constitute one of the largest cemetery areas in Germany.

The New Jewish Cemetery is the burial ground for many historical Jewish figures as well as other citizens of Frankfurt in the 19th and 20th centuries. The well maintained grounds give this cemetery a pleasant park-like appearance. A sobering Holocaust memorial stands near the entrance to the cemetery. Some individual gravestones and cenotaphs note that individuals were murdered at Nazi death camps. Many Frankfurt Jews who committed suicide rather than be deported to death camps are buried in a separate section.

After walking long in the cemetery, we found Schopenhauer’s grave.

schopenhauerEach day is a little life; every waking and rising a little birth; every fresh morning a little youth; every going to rest and sleep a little death. – Arthur Schopenhauer (Born: February 22, 1788, Poland
Died: September 21, 1860, Frankfurt).

I end this post with a little haiku (accompany by my photo) that I wrote inspired by this visit:

Tales from the Graveyard (Hauptfriedhof)
Beyond buried souls
etched marbles and bronze sculptures
Ivy thrives on tombs.

tomb01

 

Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_Main_Cemetery
http://www.hauptfriedhof-frankfurt.de/

 

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