From Hildburg Bruns
At night the silence in the cemetery on Humboldtstraße (Reinickendorf) is over. Lying tombstones are stacked on top of standing ones, candles are placed on top. Gruesome! Other graves are pure vandalism: Gravestones are kicked over or sprayed on.
“We are desperate,” says Vanessa Pick (45), whose deceased father Joachim has been in the municipal cemetery since August.
In April, his tombstone was among 15 tombstones spray-painted silver. Barely cleaned by the stonemason, it was brutally overturned in May.
The smeared tombstone of Joachim Pick Photo: private
“Of course we reported it to the police. It would be even better if the cemetery were protected from activities at night and locked,” says the former postal worker. Just like the Catholic cemetery nearby, which is always locked at 8 p.m.
Vanessa Pick (45) and her partner Andreas Voetz (53) on the cleaned tombstone. Shortly thereafter he was knocked over Photo: Sven Darmer
But: The municipal cemetery is three times larger. It is on three streets and has four entrances.
“In order to lock the cemetery at night, a corresponding locking service would have to be commissioned. Before closing, it would have to be checked that nobody is in the cemetery,” says the responsible city councilor Julia Schrod-Thiel (CDU). And: “How that should be implemented with a size of 15 hectares is questionable.“
Another tombstone that was kicked over with its base Photo: Sven Darmer
Installing turnstiles at the entrances is expensive and difficult to implement in terms of accessibility. The city councilor: “The cemetery administration has contacted the public order office and asked for inspection rounds.”
Of course, the checks only take place during office hours, nothing at night – and if staff capacities allow it.