In Berlin, you can sign up for a course “Dying for Beginners” — over a weekend you can learn how to die properly in Germany when it comes to legal and practical aspects. How can you be buried here? Which rituals and practices are popular at the moment? Can you choose music for your funeral and how do you prepare yourself and your friends for this last celebration? 

I recorded this episode directly from the funeral house with Susanne Jung, the head of Funeral Ladies. Susanne came to the funeral industry 20 years ago and witnessed major changes in burial and commemoration practices in the Berlin context: “What I witnessed back then ranged from dusty plastic flowers and unsuitable chapels to drunk cemetery workers and shabby, worn-out suits of the undertakers.”

The Funeral Ladies originated in the USA as a community formed as a counter-movement to expensive, impersonal standard funerals. In 2014, Susanne Jung founded a branch in Berlin named Funeral Ladies in order to provoke and open a window to a different approach to the entire subject — critical, compassionate and empowering.