When a newborn baby dies the same day it was born, it is called a star child.
So that parents have an opportunity to say goodbye and mourn, there should be a separate grave field at the Olching Park Cemetery.
For pastors, this is a very important part of the grief work.
Olching -
It is a topic that every normal person can hardly bear, and yet it is present. At the latest when an obituary notice is posted at the Olching cemetery, stating that a child died on the same day on which it was to see the light of day. Maybe it was already dead, maybe it lived a few hours. One thing is certain: this means an incredibly painful loss for the parents. And very few are likely to have the opportunity to set up a place of mourning in their hometown. In other words: a final resting place that you can visit and not a collective appointment for burial at any clinic.
At least that's something that CSU City Councilor Maria Hartl has been worried about for a long time.
"Parents who lose a child before or shortly after the birth experience a difficult situation and the grief is infinite." Affected people approached them with the wish to build a grave field for so-called star children at the Olchinger Parkfriedhof.
This is how the application came about
The cemetery statutes allow burials for miscarriages and stillbirths.
Since 2013 it has also been legally possible to give a livelihood to dead children weighing less than 500 grams and to bury them.
Before that, they were practically non-existent from a legal point of view.
However, Hartl sees a problem: “Of course, it is necessary to have a grave for this.
Parents and we usually talk about young people, but at this age we cannot and do not want to buy our own grave. "
She has therefore applied to the town hall on behalf of the CSU parliamentary group to set up a star children’s field, for which parents will probably not have to pay any grave fees.
In this new grave field both burial and urn burials should then be made possible.
The size of the individual graves of the star children could be much smaller.
The cemetery and fee statutes might have to be revised for this, Hartl continued.
"It would help affected parents to cope with grief, because they then know that their star child could be buried together with other star children and regardless of birth weight in a dignified place in their own city."
That's what the pastor says
Olching's Catholic pastor Josef Steindlmüller sees this too. It is part of the Christian burial culture to preserve human dignity. "And that also applies if he has only lived a few hours." Steindlmüller considers a grave field for star children to be quite appropriate at the Olching Park Cemetery. “Saying goodbye is a great help in coping with grief,” he explains. He cannot say exactly how often there are cases in Olching in which parents have to carry their newborns to the grave. Not all of them turn to the Church. "But I know of three cases in Olching in the past two years."
Christian Richter from the Olchinger Ordnungsamt is now taking further steps.
He is now ticking off the CSU's concern and gathering initial information.
Legally everything is flawless.
The matter is submitted to the main committee, which has to make a decision in principle.
That could happen this year.
The decision as to whether there will be a grave field for the star children, as it already exists in Fürstenfeldbruck, for example, will then be made on the political side.
