I think each town or administrative community has its own rules - just like city ordinances. If a cemetery is no longer in use, you may find older graves there. But in actively-used cemeteries grave-lease time is usually between 20 and 30 years. That goes for urn graves as well. You can renew the lease if you want, and that's more often done in the country where there are family members who actually visit the graves and take care of them regularly. The burial practices are different, too. Bodies are buried in wooden caskets and not embalmed the way it's done here, so they decay quickly. In the cities they bury people in sections as the deaths occur and then they recycle the graves after so many years, section by section. My father died in 1973 and his urn grave was gone about ten years ago. Baerbel NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.