Vestre Cemetery

Vestre Cemetery (Danish: Vestre Kirkegård) is located in a large park setting in the Kongens Enghave district of Copenhagen, Denmark. With its 54 hectares it is the largest cemetery in Denmark.

Beautifully landscaped, it also serves as an important open space, popular for people to take a stroll, and look at the old graves and monuments.

It is located southwest of the city center, between the Enghave, Sydhavn, Sjælør and Valby train stations on Copenhagen's S-train system, and right next to the historic Carlsberg neighbourhood.

The cemetery is one of five run by Copenhagen municipality. The other cemeteries are Assistens Cemetery, Brønshøj Cemetery, Sundby Cemetery, and Bispebjerg Cemetery.

The cemetery has a Catholic section, and next to that is a Jewish cemetery (the Jewish Western Cemetery).

History

Vestre Kirkegård was opened on 2 November 1870 to accommodate an urgent need for adequate burial places for the growing population of Copenhagen. Assistens Cemetery, till then the main cemetery of the city, had long been unable to cope with the increasing number of burials.

Vestre Cemetery (Aarhus)

Vestre Kirkegård, established in 1927 is one of two large municipal cemeteries in Aarhus, Denmark with Nordre Kirkegård being the other. The cemetery was inaugurated in 1927 when Nordre Kirkegård was filled up. Originally, the cemetery was 5 hectares, but it has been expanded several times, until its present size of 16.9 hectares.

Vestre Kirkegård contains two chapels. Store Kapel (Lit. Big Chapel) originates from the opening of the cemetery and contains 252 seats. The other, Lille Kapel (Lit. Little Chapel) designed by Henning Larsen is from 1969 and contains 50 seats. Lille Kapel in addition features a crematorium. Henry From and Christian Frederik Møller is interred in Vestre Kirkegård.

World War II

The second world war left a notable impact on Vestre Kirkegård. There are 17 protected graves belonging to resistance fighters who died in the Neuengamme concentration camp and a memorial wall has been erected by Aarhus Municipality to commemorate 15 of its citizens that died in German concentration camps and were buried elsewhere. There is a grave site and memorial for 13 victims of a 1944 explosion in Aarhus harbor who could not be identified. Finally there is a memorial for two Soviet prisoners, grave site and memorial for 11 British soldiers, grave site for 299 German soldiers who died in 1945 and a grave site for 619 German refugees that died in 1945.