Nijverdal

Geschiedenis

Nijverdal is a town of approximately 30000 inhabitants in the Dutch province of Overijssel. It is the commercial centre of the municipality Hellendoorn.Nijverdal (which means Industrious Valley) was founded in 1836 on the territory of the hamlet Noetsele. It was here that the industrial revolution in the Netherlands took root. Thomas Ainsworth (1795–1841) was one of its founding fathers. Textile production was the focus of industrial activity in Nijverdal, as it was for the rest of the Twente region. Some of the traditional factory buildings in the Art Deco or Jugendstil style still remain.A river called the Regge runs through the town, and is the official border between the two regions Twente and Salland, and the border of languages, which are Tweants and Sallaands, respectively. Of course Dutch is also spoken (main language), but practically every native inhabitant of Nijverdal speaks either one or both regional languages.HistoryBefore World War II, Nijverdal had a small Jewish community. The municipal seat of the area, Hellendoorn, had a small synagogue and Jewish cemetery. The synagogue still exists as a storage shed behind one of the houses in the village, and the cemetery is no longer in use. It has about 20 graves, most from the nineteenth century and early 20th century. The municipality maintains the cemetery and protects it from vandalism.