There has been a boom over the past decade, with coffee houses opening within cemetery walls and even in a former crematorium. Initial fears that customers would be spooked or mourners offended have proved largely groundless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One cafe, Lisbeth, is ensconced in a former parish hall surrounded by mature Japanese cherry trees. It is managed by Italian-born Chiara de Martin Topranin, 30, who found it via a vaguely written online advert seeking \u201csomeone to run a lovely spot in the Mitte district with a great garden\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over a cappuccino with a view of the Protestant Sophien cemetery\u2019s undulating field of headstones, she says she balked at first when the building\u2019s owners revealed she would be working in a graveyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was unthinkable for me as an Italian,\u201d says Topranin. \u201cFor us death is something to be hidden. When I told my family, they said, \u2018Chiara, have you lost your mind?\u2019 But the more I thought about it, the more I thought: you have to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since taking on the role, Topranin, who studied psychology, soon noticed that her clientele came to her \u201cwith a different energy than in a normal street cafe\u201d. \u201cAs soon as they pass the cemetery gates, they just seem a bit more empathetic, a little gentler.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She tries to strike a delicate balance with her guests, respecting the anguished in the throes of grief while not putting off those looking for a pleasant, if unusual, place to enjoy their lunch break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI never accept weddings,\u201d she says. \u201cI will do a birthday party but it has to be reasonable \u2013 never a big bash. I\u2019ve had guests who took their Aperol spritz out among the gravestones. Then I\u2019m quite strict and say, there\u2019s a limit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Berlin\u2019s Friedhofscaf\u00e9s <\/em>have steadily grown in popularity, few regulars are aware of their roots in the Aids crisis and changing practices around death and burial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bernd Bo\u00dfmann is widely acknowledged as the father of the cemetery cafe movement, having opened Germany\u2019s first in 2006. Finovo is located in Berlin\u2019s Sch\u00f6neberg district, a focal point of LGBTQ+ life for more than a century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A veteran of the 1980s fight for HIV research, Bo\u00dfmann had his own coming out during what he says was often dismissed as the \u201cgay plague\u201d. He saw countless young friends cut down in their prime, many of them buried in the fabled Old St Matth\u00e4us cemetery, where the folk and fairytale publishers Brothers Grimm were laid to rest a century before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut I realised that while it was a fine place for the dead, it was awful for the living,\u201d says Bo\u00dfmann, 65. \u201cThere was nowhere pleasant to sit down, nowhere to buy flowers, not even a place to go to the bathroom. That\u2019s when I noticed the small abandoned building near the gates.\u201d From that building, Finovo was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nearly 20 years on, Bo\u00dfmann has handed off management of the cafe with its Red Poppy florist shop, and it has spawned similar spots across the city, each with its own ethos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As new generations of Germans opt increasingly for cremation over burials, cemeteries have encountered financial problems in maintaining their lush grounds with dwindling demand. Desolation made many a target for vandalism and crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, the cost of commercial real estate has soared<\/a>, making the repurposing of disused cemetery buildings an appealing prospect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many patrons say they find the proximity to death a surprisingly comforting experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI came around the corner and saw a group of mourners holding a eulogy,\u201d says Andr\u00e9, a 37-year-old social worker, over a late breakfast at Cafe Friedberg, in a wooded cemetery complex in the Kreuzberg district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI quietly went round and got to the cafe entrance.\u201d. A group outside the window dressed in black gave their final goodbye with a Neil Young song playing on the speakers. He says: \u201cI personally would find it cool if my own funeral could be like that, with everyday life still taking place all around me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A bit farther south, 21 Gramm in Neuk\u00f6lln \u2013 a vast multicultural district that has been an epicentre of Berlin\u2019s gentrification<\/a> \u2013 sees itself as a \u201clittle oasis\u201d off the teeming Hermannstra\u00dfe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It takes its name from the mythical weight of a human soul. The romanesque revival chapel of rest was a derelict storage space before its new beginning eight years ago as a local hotspot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s so lush and so green amid all the linden trees and is always really lively. So it\u2019s a lot more about life than death,\u201d says yoga teacher Ieva Grigalavi\u010di\u016bt\u0117, who lives in a flat overlooking the cemetery, of the cafe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m from Lithuania and we have a saying that every time someone in the family dies, someone is being born. So it\u2019s the same thing here, right? Death and rebirth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mars coffee house in the Silent Green cultural complex in the northern borough of Wedding is located in a decommissioned crematorium and looks out on the Gerichtstra\u00dfe burial ground, conjuring similar thoughts about vibrant social life and mortality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Chiara](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/48db43a6fe5f75f05363da3ab27743677e91ffab\/241_52_4621_3697\/master\/4621.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none\")
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