“U.S. KIDS LIE FORGOTTEN IN ‘CHILDREN’S FIELD“
from
“The Stars and Stripes”
Thursday, April 28, 1983
Contributed by a member of our society stationed at Ludwigsburg, Germany – Carl W. Gray
Frankfurt—Tucked away in a corner of this city’s main cemetery is a small plot of land that is a sharp contrast to the colorful, well-tended German gravesites nearby.
It would be easy to miss. Small, overgrown headstones, a few wilting flowers and one or two simple wooden crosses are all that mark the site.
The cemetery administrators call it the “U.S. Kinderreihenfeld,” or “U.S, children’s field”. An unknown number of American children aged five and under—possibly as many as 1,000—have been buried here since 1946.
This is the only section of any cemetery in Germany that is set aside specifically for American children, according to Karl Wendt, a cemetery administrator for the city.
“American children up to five years old who have died are sent here from all over Germany,” said Wendt. He said there is another section for children up to age 14, but it includes other nationalities: The Kinderreihenfeld is only for Americans.
Ernest Semester, supervisory mortuary officer and identification specialist for the Army Memorial Affairs Activity Europe, said his agency handles burials for American children in the children’s plot at the parents’ request.
There is no fee for the service. The only cost to the parents would be if they wanted a small headstone placed on the grave, Semester said,
”We bury between five and 10 a year,” he said. ”1 don’t really know why people would want to bury them here rather than in the States. We never ask.”
There is no way to know exactly how many children have been laid to rest there since the land was donated by the Germans to the U.S. Army shortly after World War II.
“In Europe, burials aren’t permanent,” Semester said. “After a period of time the remains and the casket have pretty much disintegrated, and the land is used again. The Germans destroy burial records after 10 years, and we destroy ours after five, so there’s no way to tell. I’d say it’s probably somewhere around a thousand.”
The Kinderreihenfeld is small. Half of the plot has no markers, but rows of small headstones dot the left side, with the earliest dating from 1966. The latest additions are dated this year. There is room for one more row on the left side of the plot.
Wendt said when this last row is completed, the cemetery will begin burying the children again at the other end because enough time has passed for the remains on the right side to disintegrate.
Late last year, several military community organisations launched a project to ensure each grave at the Kinderreihen feld gets a marker and to put a small monument on the site. But the plans seem to have stalled, according to a Frankfurt community spokeswoman.
“We haven’t really made any progress since it was first brought up last year,” she said.
“The parents return to the States and don’t come back here again,” Wendt said. “We clean (the plot), cut the grass, but we don’t put flowers or anything* 1 think most of the children are forgotten.”
To get to the Kinderreihenfeld, enter through the cemetery’s main gate on Eckenheimer Landstrasse. Turn left and follow the path to the end, where a memorial stands to those who died in the Zeppelin Hindenburg crash in 1937. Turn right, and the Kinderreihenfeld is on the left about 20 yards past the Hindenburg memorial.
(From “Footprints Past and Present”, Volume 6, Issue 3, Page 179, Richland County Genealogical and Historical Society, Olney, Illinois)