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Students from the Johannes-Sturmius-Gymnasium in Schleiden with the coffin
Photo: Roberto Pfeil / dpa
Young people in the Eifel town of Schleiden buried a human skeleton on Wednesday that had previously been used in biology classes for decades.
The students of the Johannes-Sturmius-Gymnasium carried the coffin with the bones from the biology room to the nearby evangelical cemetery.
There the coffin bearing the symbols of the world religions was lowered into a grave.
About 80 students, teachers and city officials attended the funeral.
Because of the unknown origin of the female skeleton, the funeral service took place in an interreligious form, as the evangelical pastor and religion teacher Oliver Joswig said.
Joswig designed the ceremony with his Catholic colleague, which was also reported on the church's website.
Pupils presented the meaning of death in the various world religions.
They had named the skeleton Anh Bian, which means "mysterious peace" in Vietnamese.
Farewell to a stranger
"We are actually burying a school member," said Pastor Joswig.
The skeleton had been in the school's biology department since 1952.
In the meantime, the demonstration object has been replaced by a plastic model.
The skeleton was bought by the city of Schleiden in 1952 for 600 Deutschmarks.
A DNA analysis that has already been taken should provide information about the age and approximate origin of the unknown.
Pupils from the 11th grade had campaigned for the burial.
They had previously designed a blue children's coffin donated by an undertaker and placed the bones in it.
There have been plans for a funeral for some time, but they had not yet been implemented due to the corona pandemic.
"We wanted to give our skeleton a final resting place," reported Joswig.
The model was the similar approach of a high school in Stolberg near Aachen.
There, students had buried the school skeleton in 2016.
him/dpa
