Coventry Nazi victims' graveyard "resembles scene from Schindler's List", offended resident claims

[dutchman]

A visitor said it looks like a scene from Steven Spielberg's Holocaust movie



A cemetery where victims of Nazi bombers are buried has been described as resembling a scene from Holocaust movie Schindler’s List after gravestones appeared to form a makeshift path.

However, Coventry City Council has clarified that the area of London Road Cemetery in question is not a path but a series of relocated graves from another churchyard.

The cemetery contains the bodies of more than 800 people killed during World War Two in a pair of mass graves at the site.

One resident recently noticed one area of the cemetery features a line of gravestones laid flat in a line, near the non-conformist chapel.

Ed Lawrence, who lives nearby, told the Telegraph he thought the presentation of the graves was “disrespectful” and reminded him of a scene from the film Schindler’s List where Jewish tombstones were used to pave a road.

After a recent visit to London Road Cemetery , Mr Lawrence said: “There’s a line of about 20 headstones. I thought the way they had been laid was quite disrespectful.

“I’m not related to the people on the gravestones, but I still found it quite offensive that they had just left them like that.

“It reminded me of the scene in Schindler’s List where they paved the road with Jewish gravestones. It shouldn’t be like that.”

A spokesman for the council, which is responsible for the upkeep of the cemetery, said the graves had been laid in the way they had due to a lack of space.

He said: “There is a line of graves which all have the headstones laid flat near the non-conformist chapel.

“Many years ago an old churchyard had several graves exhumed so the land could be redeveloped and Bereavement Services were asked to supply new graves.

“The request was that they were relocated into the old side of the cemetery. As this was already full, a narrow grassed area was used and the graves were dug head to foot. The memorials were laid on top of the graves as required.

“This is not a path, these are graves and should be treated as such.”