Sage

So I have been on the train for the last 5 hours trying to get to Sage, and now that I am here I know why. The cemetery isn’t in the village of Sage, the village doesn’t really exist anymore except on maps, and the only way to get there is take a local train and then a cab. I learned my lesson yesterday, and once I saw a sign for the cemetery didn’t just start walking, I asked a local how far it was and then called a cab instead of walking 10 km there and back. A quick side note, talking to people has become incredibly easier now that I am in Germany. Too bad this is my only stop in Germany until I am back here for the month of July.

First of all, the cemetery is actually on the side of the highway. Its trees on both side of a single lane highway and then all of a sudden on one side there is the cemetery. This gives t a very different feel from what I imagined a memorial would have. I imagined peace and tranquility, like I found at Holten where the cemetery is located in the middle of a national park, but here there were cars going by constantly. Now thinking about it, I am not sure this is such of a bad thing. When designing a memorial I would think that one would try to account for a number of things. First and foremost the location and architecture should honor the fallen soldiers. But if a location is chosen that is very peaceful, but is also an hour drive into the middle of nowhere I would imagine no one would go to see it. On one hand having this memorial on the side of a highway seems disrespectful to me, but the more I think about it the most I like it. Think about how many people drive by that memorial every single day. Each of them has to see it and think at least a small amount about why it is there.

That said, there was very little traffic into the actual cemetery itself. I was walking through spider webs as I walked between the rows, which are over 6 feet between them. So you know it has been a while since the last traffic. Checking the visitor sign in book, it appears that someone would visit once every three days or so, which is very low traffic.

The design of the monument was the same as I found in Holten and Regina. Since I am now 3 out of 3 for having the same monument at each of the locations it seems that this will be a recurring theme. I will have to research what this monument symbolizes, who designed it and most importantly why it is used all over the place.

I came to this location for only 1 grave, that of Arthur Stein, who is a relative of mine. He grew up in Neudorf, the same town as my grandparents and my mom, and he was an air force pilot. Here his grave is shared by the 3 other members of his plane because their plane crashed and none of the bodies could be identified individually. It is actually jarring every time I see a large grave like this one, where it makes you think about the way they died, not just what they did for their country and the world.