I visited an intriguing place recently, right in the center of the city of Mainz, in Germany.\u00a0 I had come to pay my respects to Cardinal Lehmann who died earlier this year and is buried in the crypt of the historic Cathedral.\u00a0 People continue to leave flowers and candles at this place of mourning; the Cardinal, who served as bishop of Mainz for 33 years, is one of the \u201cbeloved dead\u201d here.<\/p>\n
In walking distance from his final resting place is a quite different place of mourning.\u00a0 It was dedicated just a few months earlier, as a \u201cTrauerort<\/em>\u201d — a public place for mourning.\u00a0 The site is an invitation, especially to migrants and refugees, who have not only lost their home but also the graves of their beloved dead.\u00a0 Even sadder, some of those who have made their way to Europe, have lost loved ones in their very flight from places of violence and conflict; think of those lost at sea, on perilous boat journeys across the Mediterranean.\u00a0 How and where to mourn \u2013 visibly, noticeably, publicly \u2013 when there is no cemetery that houses your beloved dead, and no public memorial to those you left behind?<\/p>\n This is where the idea of a Trauerort<\/em> comes in.\u00a0 Mainz is not the only or first city in Germany that now includes such a place for mourning; the city of D\u00fcsseldorf opened a first \u201cintercultural place of mourning\u201d in 2011.\u00a0 In Mainz, the Trauerort<\/em> is located on the side of a Baroque Catholic church; the parish collaborated in the creation of this public space. \u00a0It is a quiet spot, in the midst of a busy city. A tree offers shade, and two stone half-circles, which can serve as a bench and\/or candle stand, face each other, like two arms that hold something precious in their midst.\u00a0 The design is by the artist Doaa Elasyed, a refugee herself.\u00a0 The Trauerort<\/em> is made complete by a huge, rough, unpolished stone.\u00a0 The text on the stone reads as follows, in loose translation:<\/p>\n A Place to Mourn:<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For all those who cannot visit the graves of their beloved dead. I am not a refugee in Germany (although I sometimes experience myself as a migrant between my country of origin and the other side of the North Atlantic).\u00a0 Yet the sadness of no longer (or very rarely) being able to visit the graves of my beloved dead resonated with me.\u00a0 In addition, since the numbers of migrants continue to be on the rise globally, I wonder whether places like the Trauerorte<\/em> in Germany are not important to cultivate in other contexts too?\u00a0 How, for example, do our Central and Latin American neighbors who have moved north experience their loss of a public place to mourn their beloved dead in North America?\u00a0 Surely it is no coincidence that online places of mourning have risen so sharply in numbers and internet traffic in recent years.\u00a0 People need space to mourn and to do so visibly, where others become witnesses to this mourning.\u00a0 Our Catholic churches have long attended to that need.\u00a0 Maybe our churches can now widen the space for mourning and the circle of mourners, to include today\u2019s global migrants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How and where to mourn \u2013 visibly, noticeably, publicly \u2013 when there is no cemetery that houses your beloved dead, and no public memorial to those you left behind? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":41905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3118,275],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-celebrandi-new-ws","category-funeralsburial"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For all who have moved here from far away, for refugees and migrants.
\n<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For all peoples, of all religions, cultures, and languages.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n