German Waldheim Cemetery, previously known as Waldheim Cemetery, and currently named Forest Home Cemetery is located at 863 Des Plaines Ave. in Forest Park, a suburb of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois. It was originally founded in 1873 as a non-religion specific cemetery, where Freemasons, Roma, and German-speaking immigrants to Chicago could be buried without regard for religious affiliation. In 1969, it merged with the adjacent Forest Home Cemetery, founded at the same time, with the combined cemetery being called Forest Home (Waldheim means forest home in German).
Because it was unassociated with any religious institution, it was chosen as burial place of the Haymarket Martyrs. After they were buried there, the cemetery became a place of pilgrimage for anarchists and leftists. Because of its role as a pilgrimage site for the international left, the Haymarket memorial there was the first cemetery memorial to be designated a National Historic Landmark. The Haymarket Martyrs' Monument by sculptor Albert Weinert is located here.
In homage to the Haymarket Martyrs, many other anarchists and socialists are buried at Waldheim, including:
- Joseph Dietzgen
- Voltairine de Cleyre
- Emma Goldman
- Ben Reitman
- Lucy Parsons
- William Z. Foster
- Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
- Eugene Dennis
- Franklin Rosemont
- Raya Dunayevskaya
The English part of the cemetery—that is, Forest Home—includes the graves of:
- Billy Sunday
Famous quotes containing the words german and/or cemetery:
“I have known a German Prince with more titles than subjects, and a Spanish nobleman with more names than shirts.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774)
“The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.”
—John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla)