The sun shone on the cemetery next to the Zams parish church, framed by towering mountains in the Oberinntal valley. Around 40 people gathered around a minor white coffin, no larger than a shoebox. “It depends on how many children are in the coffin, sometimes it’s bigger, sometimes smaller,” said Paul Probst of the Zams municipality.
The coffin was carried to its final resting place on a warm autumn day in the Tyrolean Oberland and it wasn’t symbolic. The mourners had come together for a unique burial service, each grieving for someone they had never known. The individuals within the coffin were never born – they are known as “Sternenkinder,” or star children, a term for babies lost to miscarriage.
These “Sternenkinder,” or miscarriages, are collected in the local hospital’s pathology department and are brought to the cemetery by the funeral home twice a year to be placed within the coffin. “Between 30 and 70 children come together approximately every six months,” explained Christine Dellemann, the funeral director who organizes the Sternenkinder burial alongside the Zams hospital and the municipality.
