Sofienberg Park
Oslo · Norway · Cemetery
The stones were removed but the dead were never moved — beneath Grünerløkka's barbecue smoke and picnic blankets, 60,000 people still lie in their graves.
Grünerløkka's green living room has a secret beneath the grass: the whole of Sofienbergparken is a closed burial ground, and the buried are still there. The cemetery was laid out in the shadow of the cholera epidemics — around 800 people died in Christiania in a single autumn in 1833 — and between 1858 and 1931 some 60,000 people were interred here. As the city grew the cemetery was turned into a park in stages in 1961 and 1972. The stones were taken away, but the moving stopped there: the bodies stayed in the ground. Beneath the sunbathers, the barbecue smoke and the football, tens of thousands of Oslo citizens rest in their graves. Only the Jewish section north of Sofienberg church stands untouched with its stones, a reminder of what the park really is. Aftenposten has called it one of the city's most forgotten grounds of grief.
FAQ
Where is Sofienberg Park located?
Sofienberg Park is in Oslo, Norway.
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Image: Tore Sætre · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons