Enschede

Details: Category: Overijssel - places to visit

Enschede, is a municipality and a city in the eastern Netherlands in the province of Overijssel and in the Twente region.

The municipality of Enschede consisted of the city of Enschede until 1935, when the rural municipality of Lonneker, which surrounded the city, was annexed after the rapid industrial expansion of Enschede which began in the 1860s and involved the building of railways and the digging of the Twentekanaal.

Geography
Enschede lies in the eastern part of Overijssel and is the easternmost city of more than 100,000 inhabitants in the Netherlands. The city lies a few kilometres from Germany, which borders the municipality. In the west, Hengelo is the first important place and at the eastern side, Gronau plays that role. More than a few small rivers flow through or surround the city, such as the Roombeek and Glanerbeek.

Enschede contains five official city districts ("Stadsdelen"). Note that they also include surrounding villages in the municipality:

* Stadsdeel Centrum (Binnenstad (Enschede)|Binnenstad, Boddenkamp, De Bothoven, 't Getfert, Hogeland Noord, Horstlanden-Veldkamp, Laares, Lasonder-'t Zeggelt)
* Stadsdeel Noord (for example: Lonneker, Deppenbroek, Bolhaar, Mekkelholt, Roombeek, Twekkelerveld)
* Stadsdeel Oost (for example: Wooldrik, Velve-Lindenhof, De Eschmarke, ’t Ribbelt, Stokhorst, Dolphia, ’t Hogeland and Glanerbrug)
* Stadsdeel Zuid (Wesselerbrink, Helmerhoek and Stroinkslanden)
* Stadsdeel West (Boswinkel, Ruwenbos, Pathmos, Stadsveld, Bruggert, ’t Zwering, ’t Havengebied, De Marssteden, Boekelo, Usselo and Twekkelo)

History
Pre-industrialisation

The early history of Enschede is largely unknown, but a settlement existed around the Old Marketplace in early medieval times. The name of this settlement is mentioned as Anescede or Enscede meaning either "near the border" (with Bentheim) or "near the Es" and sported a church, a marketplace and a fortified aristocratic house.

Enschede was granted city rights around 1300 which were confirmed in 1325 by Bishop Jan III van Diest and henceforth was allowed to protect itself with a wall. Because a stone wall was too expensive (since stone had to be imported), Enschede had a system of ditches, palisades and hedges instead, which is still reflected in the street-names Noorderhagen and Zuiderhagen (North Hedge and South Hedge, respectively). The city plan of this era is still recognisable in the street-pattern.

Because the medieval city was largely built of wood and stone houses were the exception, fire was a constant risk and a series of fires in 1517, 1750 and again on 7 May 1862 earned the people from Enschede the nickname Brandstichters (arsonists).

Industrialisation
The last fire coincided with the start of the growth of the city into a large production center of textiles, originally as a cottage industry, but since the start of the 19th century on an industrial scale, especially the manufacture of bombazijn (a mixture of cotton and linen) proved an export hit. One such factory to have produced textiles in the late 19th century is the Hardick & Seckel Factory.

The industrialisation stimulated a large increase in population, which by 1894 had reached an estimated 18,267:[3] nineteenth century urban growth was at first rather chaotic. The names of the slums (like De Krim and Sebastopol) are still notorious, although they have long since been torn down. In 1907 the laissez faire mentality was dropped and Enschede was the first city in the Netherlands to draw up an official expansion-plan, incorporating the (surrounding) municipality of Lonneker.

World War II
During the Second World War Enschede was one of the first Dutch cities to be captured by the Germans, being the city closest to Germany. Resistance members helped many of the Jews from Enschede to hide on farms in the vicinity. Out of approximately 1300 Jews in Enschede, 500 were saved (38.5%), compared to less than 20% in the rest of the Netherlands. This high survival rate is attributed to three members of the Jewish Council of Enschede, Sig Menko, Gerard Sanders and Isidoor Van Dam who took the initiative, against the advice of the Jewish Council of Amsterdam, of urging their community to go into hiding and not to answer the call-up of the Germans for "labour in the East". They were in a position to support these directions to their flock since they had access to funds, to power in the community and to a well-developed underground movement headed by a prominent Protestant minister, Leendert Overduin (Yad Vashem). Due to carelessness the resistance group was betrayed by an infiltrator and all its members were killed by German soldiers while gathered in a basement. The Germans threw in some grenades, a few days before the allied troops liberated the city. Even though "De ondergrondse" (the resistance, litt. the underground) was the main resistance group, many other citizens risked their lives, for example by rescuing allied pilots who were shot down while on bombing missions. Because it was close to Germany (only a few kilometers from the town of Gronau in Germany) and housed a German command center, Enschede was frequently bombed by allied troops, aiming for the German command center or mistaking Enschede for a German city. Enschede was liberated on 1 April 1945 by Allied, mainly Canadian, troops.

The end of the industrial age
In the 1970s the textile production in Enschede came to a halt, due to fierce competition from mainly the Far East. This had a profound effect on the populace. Enschede became one of the poorest municipalities in the Netherlands and (de facto) went bankrupt. Large areas of industrial wasteland came to mark the city.

With the support of the national government, this property was acquired and rebuilt. The city center was rendered a car-free zone, the importance of Enschede as a Euregional Centre was stimulated and Enschede managed to rise from the ashes (for once not literally).

Culture
There are several museums in Enschede, among them the Rijksmuseum Twenthe for art. A museum of natural history and a museum dedicated to the history of the textiles industry, both closed in January 2007, have merged, and have reopened in April 2008 in new premises on a new location under the name TwentseWelle (Source/Well of Twente). The new location is situated in Roombeek, where a fireworks disaster took place in 2000. The new museum is located partly in a renovated old textile factory, in reference to Enschede's textile history, and partly in an adjourning new building, designed by the Amsterdam-based firm SeARCH (project architect: Bjarne Mastenbroek). Enschede is also home of The Netherlands Symphony Orchestra.

In December 2012, the Serious Request action from national radio station 3FM took place in Enschede, which collected more than 12.2 million euros (almost 16.2 million US dollars).

Map of Enschede