Remembering the dead (testimony, funeral, hell, attend, church)

[Djamila]

In your religion, how are the places where people died remembered in the event of tragedy?

Sarajevo has adopted a universal method of marking memorial locations, and there are thousands in the city.

Here are a few examples, and I'll explain some of the details so you can see how it is done here.



The memorial above is to a dozen highschool students who were killed at this location in 1993 by a shell. The school behind (the orange building) is Sarajevo's more prestigious Islamic highschool.

You will see on the right a plaque that is a prayer for those who were killed, and the impact crater has been preserved in the original sidewalk of which you can see a small portion on the ground (the lighter, older one).

The people lay wreaths and pray the Bosnian Muslim way, which is to stand with your hands outstreched as you see. You can only do this as you are reciting a prayer in your mind or out loud. If you're just standing for a moment or silence, or listening to a prayer, you fold your hands or hold them some other way.



This one above is for 22 civilians killed by a shell at a cafe in 1994. It has the same plaque, it's just a bit larger to list more names. And again the wreaths and typical way of praying.



Here they are laying wreaths for 6 Roman Catholic schoolgirls killed by a shell outside the cheese market (building on the right) in 1993.



Here is one that is not for a specific incident, but for the Maternity Hospital in the north side of town. It is for the 62 pregnant women, and 104 infants, who were killed by shelling and sniping against the maternity hospital from 1992-1995.

This plaque also contains a quote from the testimony at the war crimes tribunal of one of the women whose baby was killed: "Do you know what it's like to walk out of a maternity hospital backwards, so the sniper's bullet will get you, in the back, and not your child?"

And that's how they work, they're all more or less the same.

How about among you? Roadside memorials? Accident memorials? What do you do?

[athanasius]

Since the early church Catholics have always rembered the dead in thier liturgies by praying for them and offering masses for them and holding special feast days like "All souls day" to commemorate thier eternal memory.

[Booko]

Originally Posted by Djamila

In your religion, how are the places where people died remembered in the event of tragedy?

Since those places would be in Iran, they aren't.

Anything we did would be destroyed by the gov't in a hot minute.

[Scarlett Wampus]

Djamila the examples you gave are striking in that the circumstances in which the people concerned died involved much violence. Such events have an extra significance that natural or accidental death does not.

I think Wreaths and flowers in general seem to be the most common way to mark death here. That's what I notice anyhow. As for religion my family and myself are mixed faith, from strong athiests to devout Jesuit Catholics. We tend to talk a lot. When my grandmother died recently there was a big funeral of course but far more time was spent sitting around talking about her life and how it had influenced everyone.

[GoldenDragon]

I remember when I attended Catholic school every All Soul's day we would light a candle for in memory of our deceased loved ones.

[Zephyr]

Our ancestors are remembered through their decendants. There are also various monuments scattered throughout Germanic Europe.

[BFD_Zayl]

in my religion, all i can say is that there is a grand wake, everybody the person knew in life is invited, that includes any other necromancers he knew. it can last for hours and while any necromancers there act solemn, they encourage everybody else to eat, drink, dance, and have a good time. because we see death as a release, s/he is going to a place they were destined to be and there is no reason to mourn their loss, because we will see him/her again. after the wake the body is usually cremated and the ashes spread in a circle around the house the person lived in as a child. or if he requests another house, then we do it there. it is done by the necromancer the person trusted most in life, if there are no other necromancers to perform it, then the persons mother, if no mother, the father..if no father...then the person the dead has requested in their will.

[michel]

I remember those close to me - without any prompt.

My mother died in '94, and my Father in '97; I guess hardly a day goes by without my thinking of them.

[jewscout]

in Judaism we remember the day on the Jewish calendar a person died, in yiddish it's known as a Yahrzeit. In many shul's you'll find a wall w/ names of people in the community who have died and a light that is lit on their Yahrzeit. People also light Yahrzeit candles and recite Mourner's Kaddish



http://www.jewfaq.org/prayer/kaddish.htm