In 1785, the Dutch city of Roermond created a new burial ground around a smaller pre-existing Jewish cemetery. High walls separated Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish sections, with an un-consecrated area for the areligious and criminals.

In 1870, they further segregated by class. The wealthiest had elaborate vaults and mausoleums, the poorest were relegated to unmarked graves.

In 1842, Josephina, a noblewoman, fell in love with Colonel Jacobus of the Dutch cavalry, a commoner. Their marriage was scandalous because of their class differences and because she was Catholic, and he was Protestant.

Love kept them together for forty years, but prejudice labored mightily to separate them in death. He couldn’t be buried in her Catholic family plot, so she buried him on the edge of the Protestant section. Later, she arranged her enterrement in the adjacent Catholic plot with their matching memorials joining hands above the wall.

We can join hands above the wall now. We don’t have to wait. We can rise above our pathetic prejudices, elitism, and bigotry and allow our petty differences to be subsumed by the only thing that really matters—love.