TV tip
A stage for mourning: Documentary “Dream Job Undertaker”
Seren Gören stands in the Ohlsdorf Cemetery in Hamburg. She has always been fascinated by cemeteries. photo
© Yasemin Ergin/NDR/dpa
Seren Gören began to be interested in death as a child. Her profession: undertaker.
A young woman tinkers with a coffin. Seren Gören (28) works as an undertaker for a large company in Hamburg busy. She is currently preparing the decorated wooden box for a burial; She was able to get to know the deceased personally and advise her during a preventive care procedure.
Now she has to dress and do her hair for the old lady, who has fallen asleep peacefully, so that she appears presentable to her relatives. She handles everything well – there is usually a lot more to do when it comes to accident victims. Seren reaches her personal limits when it comes to child burials and premature or stillbirths, which are called “star children”. The report “Dream job of an undertaker” this Wednesday at 11:35 p.m. on Erste presents the 28-year-old’s career.
I quickly decided on my career choice
Seren began to be interested in death as a child. She was so fascinated by the cemetery next to the ice cream parlor in her hometown that she soon decided on her career choice. Her family has Kurdish-Yezidi roots and belongs to a culture in which burials are celebrated very differently than is usual in Germany. So she initially completed training as a legal assistant before becoming a undertaker and obtaining her master’s degree last year. “Since I’ve been doing the job, there has hardly been a day that I haven’t enjoyed going to work,” she admits.
When Seren is asked about her job at parties, she likes to say that she works as an event manager. “When I talk about my work, either the mood is down or I’m peppered with questions.”
Author Yasemin Ergin (46, “#unterAlmans – Migrant Story(s)”) accompanies her eloquent protagonist, who quit her job during filming. Now she is on the arduous path to self-employment – where she experiences a lot of rejection, for example from landlords. Eventually, however, she gets the loan she applied for approved and finds a small shop in Hamburg’s Grindelviertel with a lot of turbulent life around her – she gives her shop the beautiful name “The Sky Project”. Despite some difficulties during the renovation, it recently opened.
Seren’s parents, who fully support her, as well as a coffin maker and two florists who are impressed by the dedicated undertaker also have their say in the film. The undertaker doesn’t want to hide grief and death, but rather offers a stage for both – and has found a special way of dealing with it. She already works at the world’s largest park cemetery in Hamburg-Ohlsdorf – for her it is a special place with little sadness, but with some emotions and a lot of peace.