Hello Everyone, I am a new Kid on the list and thought I would share my experience with you. In the summer of 1998, our church took a trip to Germany to trace our German routes and to follow the Reformation Movement of Martin Luther. After the 12 day tour I had the wonder experience of visiting my ancestral home in the tiny village of Zillhausen in Baden-Wuerttemburg, about 1 hour south of Stuttgart. I spent a wonderful 5 days with Jenter's cousins and walked the streets of my ancestors, with my cousins. One thing I was particularly looking forward to, was visiting graves of ancestors at the Zillhausen Evangelisch Kircke. I was disappointed in that I saw graves no older then about 20 to 25 years. And there was no cemetery at the church. My cousins, Wilhelm Jenter and his wife Anita, both in their mid 60's, cannot remember a cemetery ever being on the church property. There is a cemetery a few blocks away. It was explained to me, that in Germany, space is precious, the country is not as big as say the United States, and they just cannot afford to use a lot of land for cemeteries. Families rent grave space for a number of years, say 20 or so and after that time, any monument is either moved to a family garden, or resold to a monument dealer and reused again. It is possible to have a family plot in a cemetery and family members continue to be buried there. As we all know, dust to dust, ashes to ashes, and eventually the remains disintegrate. A friend of mine born in Germany and a member of the BW list, tells that as a small girl in Germany she can remember the church sexton preparing a grave for new remains and seeing piles of human ones that were removed from the previous grave. (I don't know what happened to them, or where they were removed to.) I was told that some times the graves stones (monuments) might be moved to a family garden at their home. The graves there were very well kept and beautiful. Being there in the month of June, flowers were in abundance and the graves were very well cared for and blooming with flowers, a very pleasant and severe place to visit. As the daughter, granddaughter and great granddaughter of funeral directors and morticians, I can tell you that to my knowledge and to my dads, embalming is not normally practiced in Germany and most European countries. The only time that it probably would, would be in cases where the remains might need to be transported long distances, such as shipment to the USA or for sanitation reasons such as infectious disease control. Another bit of information I found intresting is that my family of Jenter's were French Huguenots who escaped from France in the 1500's and setteled in Heselwangen Germany, and from there one of my ancestors moved to the little town of Zillhausen right next door. Wilhelm and Anita told me during my visit to the Heselwangen cemetery that a plane had crash landed during WW II almost on the grounds of the Heselwangen Cemetery. Again the cemetery was not on the church grounds, but a few blocks away. They both were young children during the second world war, but they both can remember this incident. I don't remember fight off hand, but I think it might have been an allied plane, and the pilot was killed. I have only been a member of the list for a few short weeks, and I am really enjoying every ones stories. Thanks for letting me tell you of my visit. Karen JENTER Michigan USA

1500s seems early for Huguenots. The Edict of Nantes was revoked in France in 1685. It was after this that my ancestors moved from Lorraine to the Palatinate. I also read now that Lorraine was part of the Holy Roman Empire before Louis XIV seized it in 1670. Of course, there were troubles and persecutions before 1685 so an earlier move is not impossible. There must have been troubles before 1598 which led to the Edict of Nantes. How old is that Evangelist church? I would expect Balingen to be a Catholic area. Holborn says that Württemburg was strictly Lutheran and would not take the Huguenots in 1685, but received Waldensians (from Savoy) at the turn of the century. Thomas Koch ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 4:31 PM Subject: [GERMAN-LIFE] graves in Germany > Another bit of information I found intresting is that my family of Jenter's > were French Huguenots who escaped from France in the 1500's and setteled in > Heselwangen Germany, and from there one of my ancestors moved to the little > town of Zillhausen right next door.