A Different View of Death: Denmark’s Assistens Cemetery
By Kate Becker ’26
Amid towering poplar trees, locals and tourists drink beers, listen to music, and zip by on bikes along a winding path. Mothers push baby strollers. Elementary students join a scavenger hunt. Sunbathers enjoy the last rays on flower-covered fields.
Beneath them, thousands of Danes lie buried. Among them is philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Niels Bohr, and beloved fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen.
Founded in 1760, this is Denmark’s Assistens Cemetery, located in the heart of Norrebro — Copenhagen’s ethnic and cultural hub. For some, it is a solemn and historical burial ground. For others, it is a vibrant park, an outdoor cafe, even a grassy beach.
Through my time studying abroad in Copenhagen during the fall 2024 term, I found myself wandering Assistens numerous times — whether for a class assignment or feeding my own curiosity. I was enchanted by the green expanse each and every time, as well as the human life that lay within.
Assistens “challenges the often stark division between spaces for the living and the dead,” said Andrew Chesnut with whom I spoke, professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University and author of “Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint.”
It shows, Chestnut said, “how cemeteries can serve as cultural, historical, and recreational assets.”
There are other spaces, Chestnut added, where the boundaries between life and death are also fluid. Among them are park-cemeteries in Japan and Paris’s Père Lachaise Cemetery, the final resting place for Irish author Oscar Wilde, musical composer Frédéric Chopin, and rock legends Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain.
Still, Assistens stands out, if you ask the locals.
“There’s something different about the existentialism of a cemetery park,” said Miriam, 28, who was raised in Norrebro. “It becomes more humbling and peaceful. I feel like it is a healthy part of society to be around cemeteries and dead people, since it contributes to a view of death without making it tragic.”
The contrast between a cemetery functioning as a resting place for people to pay their respects to those who have passed, and a lively park where people socialize and bike to work, might be unexpected — at least from my American perspective. Yet, at Assistens, these functions seamlessly coexist. And the Danes have taken advantage of the multiple uses of Assistens.
To Miriam, it’s an escape into nature: “The wildness makes you feel like you left the city behind.” Phine, a young mother, chimed in, saying that Assistens is “a great place to seek some peace,” especially amidst the hustle and bustle of Copenhagen.
Assistens also has hosted concerts and art exhibits and has become an outdoor classroom, where schools bring students to learn about some of the lives of some of the most world-famous Danes. But even though many love the experiences and the environment of Assistens, there are still varying viewpoints on people socializing at a burial space.
Human interaction does not necessarily equate to socializing, said John, another local. “I don’t feel that this is a social space, but a place to relax,” he said. “People who sit and talk or walk dogs together is not necessarily a social event.” To him, it’s simple: “If you see grieving people, you give them space and show respect.” Otherwise, he also believes that frequenting Assistens can be healthy and pleasant, playfully describing it as a hidden “forest” integrated within the city.
While Assistens might be a normal, everyday thing for Danes, American study-abroad students shared the same cultural shock I experienced when visiting Assistens for the first time with one of my classes.
Amelia Koff ’26 noted her surprise at the “unconventional nature” of Assistens, but did add that everyone she observed in the cemetery acted respectfully.
Jen Westphal ’26, was also in awe at Assistens’ “special function” as a space to be experienced both solemnly and joyfully.
“Assistens treats death as a celebration of life,” she said, and “people can walk around peacefully.”
Study-abroad students agreed that the Assistens culture is atypical when compared to traditional cemetery etiquette in American culture.
“In America, this would [likely] be viewed as disrespectful,” Westphal said. “Assistens shows how Denmark has a lighter view towards death than the U.S. does.”
Maya Hampton VanSant ’26 said the cemetery-park demonstrates how Danes are “celebrating life” rather than lamenting death. There’s a clear “cultural difference between the United States and how we view death as a culture,” she said.
The community aspect of Assistens also left a lasting impression: “It builds a strong sense of community to have areas like this with multiple functions,” Koff said, adding that it allows people to learn to respect while they use the public spaces.
Assistens introduces an interesting idea for America about how rethinking our physical spaces might influence our view of death. For now, it’s hard to imagine a space like this in the U.S. “[We] still have a strong cultural inclination toward separating life and death,” Chestnut said, which “might limit widespread adoption of this idea.” But Assistens still makes me think that maybe this melding of life and death could lie in our future.
This post was originally published in the December 4, 2024 issue of The Amherst Student. Kate studied abroad in Copenhagen through DIS in the fall 2024 semester.