Lesbian cemetery opens in Berlin

BERLIN – What may be Europe’s first lesbian-only burial place opened Sunday in a forested Christian Lutheran graveyard in the German capital.

The final resting place will give gay women a place to share in the afterlife, said Astrid Osterland of Safia, an association primarily for elderly lesbians.

The burial ground is part of the 200-year-old Georgen Parochial Cemetery in Prenz-lauer Berg, a district in the east of the once-divided city near Alexanderplatz square.

The 400-square-meter (4,300-square-foot) section of the cemetery, newly landscaped with a winding sand path, has space for 80 bodies or urns containing cremated ashes.