Funeral in Berlin, Germany, 1945

Photograph of a funeral ceremony in Berlin, Germany. "FC1025620 ... Watch your credit. International News Photos | Slug (Funeral) | Unburied dead is the newest Berlin problem | Berlin, Germany... This Berlin funeral, with a plain box for a coffin and a handcart for a hearse and a handful of mourners walking behind, is what the undertakers would call "dignified" in Berlin today. It is an exception to the situation that is causing allied authorities headaches. Most of the poorer classes in the German capital don't know what to do with their dead. They wrap them in paper and leave them outside cemetery gates, for there is no wood for coffins and no means of transportation. Some just dig a hole in the backyard and bury their dead there. There is no fuel for crematories and the dead pile up. The death toll in Berlin is now twice that of normal times and, it is feared, when the gas is turned on gain in the city there will be a bumper crop of suicides. W.9.28.45" -- typed note attached to verso. "Received. Examiner reference library. Oct 2, 1945" -- stamped on verso.