Frankfurt Friedhof--A Walk Through History In Stone

Those of you who follow the blog regularly know that we have a habit of exploring two things wherever we go-- grocery stores and cemeteries. You can learn so much about the people and culture of a place being in those two places. We will go out of our way to make it to cemeteries and we spend precious holiday time wandering aisles of grocery stores to find out what is offered. 

That means when we found out there is a walled city cemetery in Frankfurt full of lush trees and history, we went to explore. 

In German the word for cemetery is friedhof. Much like many German words it is a logical compound noun to describe something. In this case it translates as 'peace yard' or 'place of peace.' I think there is such a beautiful way to describe a cemetery. 

The Frankfurt Friedhof lived up to all our expectations! We walked through history row by row. From the recent graves to massive monuments for wealthy families that would make any monument in DC jealous. 

As we walked we stopped to admire many of the places--trying to imagine their history by what the stones said and what family had left in memorial. 

There was a section for soldiers who had died in World War I and World War II. There were many German soldiers, but also Italians, Russian, Polish, and American Soldiers. So many graves. 

There is a section of American children from the years after WWII. Any child who died under the age of two was not sent back to the US and instead were buried here. People volunteer to take care of these graves throughout the year. 

One of the most sobering and very somber places in the cemetery was the victims of WWII section. There were several marked graves of victims. Then there were several graves for unknown people who had died in tests and other atrocious ways during the war.  

There was a memorial for victims. The acoustics were amazing. 

The headstones were so unique and of various materials. It was great to see them. Between that and the beauty of the cemetery both Lady Hiva and I thought it was a great place to be buried. haha It truly is a place of peace.