About: Assistens Cemetery

Assistens Cemetery (Danish: Assistens Kirkegård) is the name of a number of cemeteries in Denmark. The common nominator is, as the first part of the name implies (Latin: assistens meaning assisting), an assisting cemetery for a town's churches. Already by the end of the 17th century, Danish authorities deemed that the conditions for inner-city cemeteries were becoming increasingly unacceptable. Not only was the space becoming limited but it was also deemed unhygienic to conduct burial in the inner-city. The solution was to erect shared cemeteries in the outskirt of a town, named Assisting Cemetery, primarily in larger towns. The first of these in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, was founded by royal resolution on May 26, 1757, and inaugurated November 6, 1760.