Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by anyfoo 2577 days ago
In Munich, I lived near the "Old Northern Cemetery", where the last person was buried in 1944, but I only recall seeing graves there that are far older than that. It is now officially considered a park, and people use it for jogging or just lying there to relax: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/Alter_No...

It's quite a weird feeling, looking at those gravestones (sometimes quite beautiful and impressive, to be honest), and knowing that, for almost all of them, no one is alive anymore that could have actually known them.

1 comments

> people use it for jogging

Is it not considered offensive to jog in a cemetery?

Hmm, why? As I said, the cemetery has not been in use for a very long time now. Long enough that the corpses have probably rotten away completely, and nobody knows the people who laid there anymore. So I don't think anybody is going there for grieving.

The Wikipedia article itself mentions jogging as one of the uses, so I'm not making it up (at the same time it mentions "with due respect", and personally I also don't think jogging is "disrespectful"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alter_Nordfriedhof_(Munich)#Pr...

Not everywhere, and real estate is precious. Near by we have a Chinese cemetery, complete with coloured neon lights, karaoke machines, outdoor fitness centre, and jogging track going through the tombstones. You don't want to get bored in the afterlife.
I've always wondered about this. I've seen people jogging in cemeteries before, and it seems...weird.
If one keeps off the headstones they should not engender the wrath of the residents.