Fascinating stories of refugees fleeing Nazism and war featured in Lancaster museum project

Migration Stories North West is a four-year research project led by Lancaster-based Global Link to show how the region has always been a place of migration, with people moving to

different areas of the British Isles and other parts of the world owing to conflict, colonialism and trade, in search of work, educational opportunities or a better life.

Among those stories is that of Friedl Levitt originally researched as part of the 1942 Hinge of Fate project run by Lancaster City Museum.

As a refugee from Nazism, Friedl came to Lancaster from Prague in 1939, aged 15, via the Czech Kindertransport organised by British businessman, Nicholas Winton whose story

was retold recently in One Life, starring Anthony Hopkins.

Friedl was on the last Kindertransport to leave Prague and travelled alone as her brother was too unwell. He and her parents died in the Holocaust.

Friedl was welcomed to Lancaster by a host family who treated her so well that she kept in touch with them all her life and her daughter continues that connection.

She later moved to London before emigrating to Canada.

Wars brought other people to the area including Irma Daems who fled from Belgium aged 14 with her family when Germany invaded in 1914.

They arrived in Morecambe and lived with 11 other refugees in Balmoral Road.

Irma attended St Mary’s RC School and then Lancaster Girls Grammar School before leaving the area at the end of World War One.

The Spanish Civil War brought ten girls to Lancaster from the Basque region.

They stayed at Nazareth House and according to local newspaper reports enjoyed visiting the cinema and seaside.

The majority were repatriated by 1940.

Frederick Kraemer who was German, came to Britain at 16 to train as a pork butcher and by 1912 was a British citizen, married and ran a shop in Penny Street.

During World War One, anti-German feeling was such that Frederick’s shop window was smashed and by 1917, he had moved to Dublin before emigrating to America in 1922.

One of the more well known migrants who made Lancaster his home for a time was fine artist, satirical cartoonist and inventor, Karel Klíč who arrived in 1890 after winning medals

across Europe for his photogravure printing inventions, establishing methods still used today.

Originally from the Czech Republic, Karel’s invention impressed the Storey brothers and they joined forces which saw the firm flourish.

By 1895, the Rembrandt Intaglio Printing Company was founded and achieved success worldwide.

Not all the migration stories recorded people who settled in the area from afar though.

Selina Keep was a Yorkshire-born woman who moved to Morecambe and became a seaside landlady.

The Keeps were one of several families around the early 1900s who migrated from Yorkshire to run guest accommodation in Morecambe which became known as ‘Bradford by the Sea.’

Selina’s story was researched by her great granddaughter, Gail Capstick, one of 22 adult volunteers in Lancaster involved with the project supported by the National Lottery Heritage

Fund.

Between them, they contributed 24 stories from Roman times to the present day to the online map available at https://www.migrationstoriesnw.uk/

The stories were shared with Moorside Primary School pupils who then learned to conduct oral history interviews and gathered ten local stories of contemporary migration by interviewing people about their experiences.

The exhibition runs throughout August at Lancaster Maritime Museum which is open Monday, Friday-Sunday, 12pm-4pm.