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We have never seen these things before. The disappearance of works of art in the cemetery.
Gates, all things made of bronze, tiny statues, are all going away.
It is the city heritage and we feel, like, powerless.
Not knowing who to make a complaint to, what to do.
This is too much. Did you know they ripped out the Saint Anthony in marble?
Now the family gets here and sees the grave without it’s gate,
and finds those bags there. Their lost loved one is just thrown there.
Look. Even that! The dead have no peace.
We have heard some statements that there always were some occasional thefts
in the Cemetery of Consolação, just as in other cemeteries in the city.
But in this past two months the situation has exploded.
As there are lots of works of art in bronze, those pieces are going away too, you see.
The kilo of a piece in bronze costs 5 reais.
So, a vase in bronze weighting 25 kilos costs 125 reais.
A vase that may have cost the family 500 reais. But 125 reais is a good deal there.
Yeah, this week they stole my lettering sign. I got here and they had stolen my sign in bronze.
Look, this month was too much, but the thefts have been happening for a while.
For what people say, it mustn’t be this hard to rob. To thieve, in this case.
Because the cemetery is very big. It has more than 76.000 square meters. The wall has electrified fences over it,
but we spotted some areas where the fenced where broken.
So, the grave itself is used as a step for people to climb. It is not that hard to climb that wall.
The city hall says that the funerary service is intensifying security,
with the support of the metropolitan civil guard, which does the rounds in all the cemeteries of the city.
City hall also said that the families, when they win the concession of the ground in the Cemetery of Consolação,
which costs 3.173 reais the square meter, they are responsible for the maintenance and security of that ground.
Therefore, the funerary service is exempt of all administrative,
civil or criminal responsibilities when the pieces of value are stolen from the graves.
We saw it there. The scene is really quite impressive.
As you walk through the cemetery, there is one grave after the other with something that drives our attention
because its missing. Signs, family names. They pull out the tiny letters.
Gates of bronze, vases of bronze, unique pieces that the family made carve at the time.
Handles in drawers. Vases.
Even doors of chapels, of 2,10 meters of height.
Window-boxes, many pieces in bronze and so on.
Then the family gets upset when they arrive here and don’t find what the great-grandfather or the grandfather had made.
Being the first cemetery of São Paulo, how can it be that nobody notices all that, nobody thinks it’s important?
Is it because it doesn’t help with votes, or I don’t know, it doesn’t interest people?