Nightly blaze of candles lit in homage to German COVID-19 victims

Gertrud Schop plans to continue the installation until a vaccine for coronavirus is found

Last updated: May 21, 2020 | 13:16

AFP and Compiled by Christian Borbon, Digital Content Editor

2 MIN READ

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As Germany slowly emerges from coronavirus lockdown, one woman is lighting a nightly installation of 8,000 candles in memory of the pandemic dead, determined to continue "until a vaccine is found".

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At dusk each evening, 60-year-old Gertrud Schop makes the rounds of an imposing cross marked out with candles on the grass in Zella-Mehlis, a small town in central Thuringia state.

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Once a week Gertrud Schop lights a candle in her garden for every person who died from COVID-19 in Germany. This week, she and volunteers lit nearly 8,000 of them.

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Each of the flickering flames represents one of the 8,000 people who has died in Germany since March.

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Beginning early that month, Schop had originally planned to light a white candle for each person infected with the COVID-19 disease, alongside red lights for each who succumbed.

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"I wanted to make visible the numbers from the Robert Koch Institute (for disease control)," said Schop, who was also motivated by her Christian faith.

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"Three numbers on a sheet of paper, a statistic, that doesn't touch people's hearts like this installation that grows day by day," she added.

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But as the number of cases quickly surged, reaching 176,000 confirmed infections so far, Schop gave up on the original plan switching instead to commemorating the dead alone.

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She plans to continue the installation to keep their memory alive, even as the infection rate has slowed and Germany cautiously returns to everyday life.

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Now the country - less hard hit than its European neighbours - has begun loosening the restrictions imposed to control the virus' spread, although Schop's determination to continue her memorial is undiminished.

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