Death Café · Switzerland
Talking about death
to rediscover life
The Death Café was born from a Swiss idea and grew into a worldwide movement. This page tells its story and shows where to find it in Switzerland.
Talk · Listen · Respect
“Talking about death doesn’t bring it closer. But it can make life more real.”
The motto of the Death Cafés
01 / History
A story that begins in Switzerland
Before the Death Café became a worldwide movement, a sociologist from Valais brought death back into the conversation, at the table of a bistro.
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1938
Bernard Crettaz
He is born in Vissoie, in the val d’Anniviers (Valais). A sociologist and ethnologist, he serves for more than twenty years as curator of the Europe department of the Geneva Museum of Ethnography.
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1982
Death becomes a field of research
With his wife, the anthropologist Yvonne Preiswerk, he founds the Society for Thanatological Studies of Western Switzerland, exploring the rites and customs that accompany death in contemporary society.
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2003–2010
The Cafés mortels
After Yvonne’s passing (1999), Crettaz hosts his «Cafés mortels» in the bistros of French-speaking Switzerland: open gatherings where people talk about death over a coffee. Over roughly ten years he leads about forty of them in Switzerland, France and Belgium. In 2010 he publishes «Cafés mortels. Sortir la mort du silence».
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Nov 2010
Jon Underwood reads The Independent
In London, Jon Underwood develops a series of projects about death, one of them devoted precisely to talking about it. In November 2010 he reads an article in the newspaper The Independent about the work of Bernard Crettaz. Inspired by this approach, he immediately decides to adopt a similar model: the Death Café is born.
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Sept 2011
The first Death Café
Jon holds the first Death Café in the basement of his home in Hackney, East London. The model spreads quickly around the world, faithful to the principles of a free conversation, with no agenda and no profit motive.
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2017
The movement lives on
Jon dies suddenly on 27 June 2017, at the age of 44. The movement he founded is now led by his mother Susan Barsky Reid and his sister Jools Barsky, and it keeps growing around the world.
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Today
A worldwide movement with Swiss roots
Thousands of Death Cafés have taken place in dozens of countries. In Switzerland alone, the international site deathcafe.com lists 38 of them, and the legacy of Crettaz’s Cafés mortels lives on in French-speaking Switzerland.
“Bringing death out of the silence.”
Bernard Crettaz (1938–2022), Cafés mortels, 2010
02 / What it is
What is a Death Café?
A Death Café is an informal gathering where people meet over tea, coffee and something sweet to talk freely about death, dying… and life. It is not a lecture, nor a therapy group: it is a safe and welcoming space to share thoughts, questions, fears and personal experiences.
Free
Taking part is free: Death Cafés have no profit motive. At most, you may be asked to buy something to support the venue that hosts the meeting.
No agenda
No lecture, no set theme: the conversation grows out of the participants, their questions and their experiences.
A safe space
Listening and mutual respect, without judgement. What is shared stays within the group.
Not therapy
It is neither a therapy group nor a support group, and it does not replace professional care. But talking does good.
Open to all beliefs
A neutral space, open to everyone: each person brings their own view, faith or spirituality, without dogmas.
Facilitated
A facilitator, often an end-of-life doula, welcomes the group and supports the conversation, without steering it.
How it works in practice
Limited places
To keep the space intimate and respectful, signing up in advance is usually requested.
About 90 minutes
A meeting lasts about an hour and a half.
Welcome and conversation
After a short welcome, the free conversation opens up among the participants, with the support of the facilitator.
Listening is just fine
No previous experience is needed, and nobody has to speak: you can simply come and listen.
03 / In Switzerland
Death Cafés in Switzerland
The concept was born from a Swiss idea, and it lives on in Switzerland. From Ticino to Zurich to French-speaking Switzerland, associations, facilitators and palliative organisations offer regular gatherings to talk about death and accompaniment at the end of life.
Ticino Death Café
It offers regular gatherings, in person and online, to give death back a space of speech and listening, with the support of end-of-life doulas.
Death Café Zürich
Active since 2014, born from a meeting at the Cabaret Voltaire, it now gathers regularly in venues such as Sphères. In the Zurich region, the national portal deathcafe.ch is also active.
The legacy of the Cafés mortels
The legacy of Bernard Crettaz lives on in the Geneva-Lausanne region: Cancer Support Switzerland and Palliative Genève regularly host Death Cafés in Grand-Saconnex.
04 / FAQ
Frequently asked questions
The questions people ask most often before joining for the first time.
01Is it a religious event?+
02Do I have to speak?+
03Is it a therapy group?+
04How much does it cost?+
05Who are these gatherings for?+
06What happens during a gathering?+
05 / Take part
Let’s make room
for what matters
Places are limited to keep the space intimate and respectful. Find the gathering closest to you, or organise your own: the model is open to anyone who shares it in the original spirit.