Assistens Cemetery

This morning’s walkabout for a different bakery (Meyers Bageri) lead us to one of the oldest cemeteries in Copenhagen, Assistens Cemetery. This burial ground has become a hybrid space: a churchyard-turned-city park. For more than 250 years, the people of Copenhagen have buried their dead here. From the very poor and unnamed to the famous including Hans Christian Anderson and Soren Kierkegaard.

People can bike through in specified sections, take a tai chi class, have a picnic or wander among the trees in this green oasis.

The graves are personal and unique. Precious even. Relatives and friends visit bringing trinkets and lamps to adorn these resting spots. It is holy and well loved.

Master Fatman sits comfortable in the middle of the urban park. Morten Lindberg was a Danish media personality and cult figure who died in 2019 at only 53 years old.

Danish Violinist Franz Hildebrand continues to ponder the notes in another corner of the park. As French professor Georges Lacroix awaits the arrival of wayward pupils.

Søren Jensen manufactured pianos in Copenhagen between 1893 – 1918. He co-founded the Danish Piano Manufacturers Association in 1895, and later became its chairman from 1903 to 1911.

Soren Jensen is credited with the creation of the ‘butterfly’ grand piano model. His pianos are still in use today and highly valued.

The homeless are memorialized as having a place here too with the marker Gravplads for Gadens Folk dedicated in 2013. There is a place for all here.

There are thousands of graves here. Some are far apart and some are in familiar rows. Rare trees create a lush canopy above. This is a place to meander.