I am pleased to advise that Julia Drinnenberg of the Stadtmuseum Hofgeismar Germany, has now completed work on the handbooks for the following Jewish cemeteries of Northern Hesse, Germany:
Breuna, Wolfhagen, Hofgeismar, Zierenberg, Grebenstein, Sielen, Liebenau, Hümme. Helmarshausen and Wettesingen.
You can find the pdfs of the cemeteries on this link on my Google Drive:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ev9pCOFNJZ0qzT_-gzh8Y5RgCuYvLmba?usp=sharing
One can also access these cemeteries on this site:
https://www.hofgeismar.de/museum-hofgeismar/sammlungen/geschichte/juedische-kultur-in-nordhessen/
These will be followed by the Volkmarsen, Naumburg, Wolfhagen II and Trendelburg Jewish Cemeteries.
Julia is the educational leader of the Jewish department at Stadtmuseum Hofgeismar.
She has worked voluntarily for 19 years with the focus on democratic education and the historical research of the local history of the Jews.
Julia is a member of the management board of the museum and the Commission for the History of the Jews in Hesse, based in Wiesbaden. https://www.kgj-hessen.de/
The John Stedman Memorial Grant was awarded in 2022 to Julia Drinnenberg and the Jewish Department at Stadtmuseum Hofgeismar. The project for which it was awarded, involved work on ten cemeteries in the Kassel district in Germany: measuring terrain, creating site plans, transcribing Hebrew inscriptions into German (by Dvora Nekrich, Jerusalem). Beyond that: creating manuals for visitors of the cemeteries with site plans and information to the diseased (including those tombstones destroyed after 1937), making them available on the museum website and in a database (https://www.lagis-hessen.de/de/subjects/index/sn/jfh), and cleaning / photographing tombstones.
Nolan Altman plans add these cemeteries to JewishGen’s JOWBR database. Hopefully they will be translated into English.
Julia writes in October 2025:
When I handed over the Breuna-book to the Mayor of Breuna earlier this month, I met descendants of the Hamberg family: two sons of Irmgard Meyer, nee Hamberg – Rob and Andrew Meyer.
They had come with their families to the inauguration of the Irmgard-Hamberg-Platz in Breuna. It was an honour for me to hand over a copy of the book to them.
I’m happy if the booklet helps find ancestors or even brings families together.
With kind regards,
Julia Drinnenberg
Educational leader of the Jewish department
Stadtmuseum Hofgeismar
I’m pleased to have helped to bring Julia’s wonderful work to your attention.
Please feel free to share.
Best regards
Eli Rabinowitz
WE ARE HERE! Foundation
Perth Australia
Julia with Jill and Eli Rabinowitz
Hofgeismar, Hessen Germany
November 2024