Gilserberg
Encyclopedia
Location
Gilserberg lies at the foot of the KellerwaldKellerwald
The Kellerwald is a low mountain range reaching heights of up to 675 m in the western part of northern Hesse, Germany.Its assets include Germany's largest contiguous beech woodland and it contains Hesse's only national park, the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park.- Geography :The Kellerwald lies in...
, a low mountain range, nestled in the Kurhessen
Hesse-Kassel
The Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel or Hesse-Cassel was a state in the Holy Roman Empire under Imperial immediacy that came into existence when the Landgraviate of Hesse was divided in 1567 upon the death of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse. His eldest son William IV inherited the northern half and the...
Highland on Federal Highway (Bundesstraße) B 3, 60 km from Kassel
Kassel
Kassel is a town located on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Kassel Regierungsbezirk and the Kreis of the same name and has approximately 195,000 inhabitants.- History :...
and 30 km from Marburg
Marburg
Marburg is a city in the state of Hesse, Germany, on the River Lahn. It is the main town of the Marburg-Biedenkopf district and its population, as of March 2010, was 79,911.- Founding and early history :...
.
Constituent communities
Together with the main centre, which also bears the same name as the whole municipality, the ten centres of Appenhain, Heimbach, Itzenhain, Lischeid, Moischeid, Sachsenhausen, Schönau, Schönstein, Sebbeterode and Winterscheid also belong to the community of Gilserberg.Jewish community
There was a Jewish community in Gilserberg from the 18th century through to sometime after 1933. The Jewish population peaked about 1900 at 70 or more persons. The first synagogueSynagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
was supposedly built about the beginning of the 19th century. A newer one was festively consecrated on 12 January 1898. However, it was destroyed on Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
(9 November 1938). At least four of the community's Jewish residents were murdered in Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
death camps
Extermination camps in the Holocaust
Extermination camps were camps built by Nazi Germany during the Second World War to systematically kill millions by gassing and extreme work under starvation conditions. While there were victims from many groups, Jews were the main targets. This genocide of the Jewish people was the Third...
. All that is left nowadays in Gilserberg of the former Jewish community is a small Jewish graveyard
Graveyard
A graveyard is any place set aside for long-term burial of the dead, with or without monuments such as headstones...
.