Museum Tot Zover

According to its website, Museum Tot Zover is “dying” to answer the question of how people deal with death. It’s housed in a 19th-century former foreman’s home in De Nieuwe Ooster, Amsterdam’s largest cemetery.

The museum explores the multicultural nature of funeral practices in the country, as well as the funeral traditions of various religions. Rather than the usual death museum fare of true crime or medical specimens, Tot Zover focuses on the culture and conversation around death and the funeral industry.

Its collections include books of post-mortem photography, early-20th-century hearses, Victorian hair keepsakes, and handmade urns for pets. Past exhibitions have examined Italian coffin marketing—calendars with scantily clad women posing both on and in the merchandise—and the use of smartphones as records of the device’s owner's death in the Middle East.

The museum also hosts regular Dutch-language “mourning cafes” for locals, with guest speakers giving lectures and guiding discussions.