Small Peculiar

Ask the Internet to show you pictures of Kafka’s grave and you’ll get six Kafkas for the price of one: Franz and his parents Julie and Hermann, who survived him, are all stacked in the same plot, much as Franz seemed to feel they were stacked on top of each other (with him at the bottom) in life. Franz’s sisters, Valli, Elli, and Ottla, lived long enough to be murdered by the Nazis; their exact death dates are unknown, but they are commemorated by a plaque at the foot of the gravestone. Hermann and Julie had two other sons, but they both died in infancy, which introduces the possibility that of the six Kafka children fate was actually kindest to Franz.