Lake District Holocaust Project

In 1945, the people of Lakeland welcomed 300 child Holocaust survivors into their community for a period of recuperation before they started new lives. Arriving in the Lake District was described by the children as being in "Paradise," a stark contrast to their experiences in Nazi concentration camps and ghettos. The Lake District Holocaust Project, established in 2013 after years of research and education, documented these events through exhibitions, oral histories, and multimedia installations.

A touring exhibition, "Auschwitz to Ambleside," traveled through the Lakes area in 2008-2009, and a permanent exhibition was set up in Windermere Library in 2010, which expanded in 2013 due to its success. The exhibition attracts visitors worldwide, including from the US, Canada, Germany, and Israel, and involves artists, writers, musicians, academics, teachers, and schoolchildren.

The children, liberated from the Theresienstadt ghetto near Prague, were brought to the UK in August 1945. They were transported to the Lake District by aircraft, arriving at Crosby on Eden airfield. Initially housed at the Calgarth Estate, a wartime housing scheme, the children were provided with individual rooms, clean linen, and opportunities for education and recreation. Over six months, they were gradually moved to homes across the UK.

Photographs taken by German-born photographer Kurt Hutton during the children's stay at Calgarth Estate were discovered in 2009, many of which feature the Windermere Children. These images, some unpublished, capture the children's early experiences of recovery and adaptation to their new lives in the UK.