Burgenland is a state of Austria encompassing the entire eastern border adjacent to Hungary. The Bucklige Welt, or Hunchback World, is a region of foothills situated in the southeastern corner of Lower Austria particularly suited to hiking and biking. Also called “The Land of a Thousand Hills,” Bucklige Welt shares the northern corner of Burgenland. As an American “tourist,” I’d describe the area as Austria’s best-kept secret.
The secrets to my Semitic past have been left behind in the remaining homes, synagogues, and cemeteries of the Austrian Jews from the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. The unfortunate tides of history have forever altered access to those secrets. Homes and synagogues were torn down and aryanized while cemeteries were desecrated and/or destroyed. Larger cemeteries in key cities were often lost to the ravages of war. Many of those cities, such as Wiener Neustadt, have made quite successful attempts at restoring their historical town centers to their former glory, despite the loss of vibrant and thriving Jewish sectors. (more…)
It looks like thursday posts are becoming a habit. So thursday it is.
This Cemetery is Hiding a Secret
I found the West Weber cemetery while driving the back roads in Weber County. It is in a small farm town located West of Ogden, Utah on the plains between the mountains and the north end of the Great Salt Lake. As I got closer to the cemetery itself, I noticed that most of the tombstones, even the newer ones, are a deep rust color. The newer tombstones are a lighter red, while the older ones are almost brownish-black.
While it’s a bit disappointing to see the tombstones covered in a reddish-film, it’s also pretty cool. The dark color of the tombstones make it difficult to get a decent photograph for identifying people buried there, but the dark red color adds a mystique that can even be called “creepy” at Halloween time. However, the secret of this graveyard is not in the discolored graves. (more…)
It’s rare that you come across a cemetery this well-loved. Around here, cemeteries are clean, lawns are watered and mowed regularly, and a caretaker cleans up old grave decorations. But I’ve never seen a cemetery like this one. As soon as I laid eyes on it, I knew that I would get some good pictures, even though I was using my cell phone. I didn’t expect to get a panoramic view that I could use for my header photo, but as you can clearly see, it worked out great. Here’s another panorama:
I don’t think Springville Cemetery always looked this good. I can imagine it overgrown with weeds, and tombstones knocked over and used for target practice by rambunctious kids. Now it is completely fenced and cleaned up, but the oldest tombstones needed rescuing. Some, beyond repair, were rescued anyway:
October is my favorite month of the year. It may or may not be because of my birthday, but I do know that it is because of Halloween. It is probably a combination of things: Halloween, my birthday, autumn, and the general feeling of anticipation mixed with dread as the harvest is gathered in preparation for the coming of the dark, cold days of winter. I feel a sense of romance as leaves change colors, pumpkins appear on porch steps, and figures of ghosts are hung from molting trees. I love the dark evenings when candles are lit and ghost stories are told. I love the cold crisp smell of the air. It’s the perfect month for celebrating cemeteries.
Balyna Parish Cemetery in Ireland. Did you know that our modern day celebration of Halloween comes from Ireland?
October is a time for romance, the kind of romance that elicits feelings of excitement, nostalgia and mystery–a sentimental mood that lends a listening ear towards the unknown things of the past. Graveyards are some of the most romantic places I know. They are the places that keep the things of the past in a state of limbo–we know the stories are there, but they are buried with the storytellers and remain in the realm of the unknown. Cemeteries are the true places of Untold Stories.
So in the spirit of cemeteries and storytelling, I will be sharing bits and pieces of stories of the past told by others. Today, I’d like to share a comment made on my own Untold Stories from a fellow blogger, Jeff Roberts:
“We grow up believing graveyards to be haunted. It was almost a rite of passage to test your bravery by visiting the forgotten after midnight. We all thought we saw ghosts as shadows danced from grave to grave by the reflective moonlight….. given time and some maturity this perspective changed. The hauntings became monuments. The monuments became people. These people became giants. Not all who walk this earth are compelled to understand the past that shapes our present.
I am one so fortunate. As a kid hiking the sage & juniper, I saw much more than just nature. Humanity had been here. An arrowhead, a wagon trail trace, a metate, a stump, a rusted ring from a barrel, and a purple glint… glass from a pioneer traveller. Eventually it became my task to make sense out of 150 years of cemetery records. An opportunity to find the lost or the misplaced or the forgotten. An opportunity to connect this grave with that grave or that grave with that family. An opportunity to reconnect people with their past. An opportunity to tell a hundred stories. And what stories and what men and women and what toil and what sacrifice and what tragedy and what sorrow and what joy.”
Thank you, Jeff, for keeping the romance alive; and Happy Graveyard Month!
StoriesFromthePast.com 