Got a different connection to death: Oliver Fleischer, pallbearer in a part-time job.
Image: Stefan Finger
The actor Oliver Fleischer works part-time as a pallbearer. That sounds depressing. Sometimes it’s even hard not to laugh.
Mr. Fleischer, I always thought that relatives or friends would carry the coffin. Why do we need people like you?
This is becoming less common even in the countryside. People aren’t anchored that way anymore. There are funerals, there’s nobody there, just us six pallbearers. Then you think: What has the person done wrong in life? At some urn burials I was all alone. There wasn’t even a minister or eulogist.
No priest?
These were often social funerals, which means that the office covered the costs because there were no relatives who could pay for the funeral. Once a cemetery gardener came to me and asked me where the urn was. I’m like, “Where’s the urn? Do you want me to have it in my pocket?” There was a phone call. Then it turned out: It was in a closet with the cemetery gardener. Even in death, the person was forgotten. Nobody was at the funeral. I carried the urn alone.
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