Holocaust survivors to return to Lake District for reunion

Holocaust survivors will return to the Lake District next week to mark the 70th anniversary of their escape to Cumbria from persecution in Europe.

Ben Helfgott, who will join up to 20 other survivors at the reunion, said: “I remember arriving in the Lake District very clearly. We came from hell to the Garden of Eden.”

Children from three primary schools have planted flowers in the garden of Windermere Library to mark the anniversary. More than 300 orphaned children started new lives in the Lake District, after they were flown out of Nazi-occupied Europe.

Their story is told in a permanent exhibition, From Auschwitz to Ambleside, which was produced by the Lake District Holocaust Project and is on permanent display in Windermere Library.