Skipton World War One Prisoners of War camp project

The last few weeks have seen some exciting developments with the 'Kriegsgefangen in Skipton' translation project, Anne Buckley writes.

We have seen our first letter written by one of the POWs back home to his family. It is a beautiful example of Kurrent handwriting. The writer's main concern is for the health and wellbeing of his family but he also thanks them for the 'splendid ham and Easter cake' they have sent over. We have also seen some amazing photos of the German POWs in the camp, which were taken by one of the British guards and sent to us by his grandchildren. We are doing some research about the guard, which has revealed a very interesting story - we will post all the details and the photos on our website very soon! See: https://arts.leeds.ac.uk/kriegsgefangen/

Last week I went to meet the sixth formers studying German at South Craven School and their teacher Jessica Mahler, who did her PGCE here at the University of Leeds. They are all very enthusiastic about the Skipton POW camp project and we are delighted that they are going to work as a team to translate a section of Kriegsgefangen in Skipton. This brings the number of translators to 23.

Our multi-authored translation mirrors the original book, which contains the work of about 50 men in the form of written accounts, poems, sketches and plans. We are looking forward to welcoming a group of Year 12 students from a number of schools to the University of Leeds on 6th February for our Experience German day – we will be telling them all about this exciting project!

On 25th March we will be exhibiting the project at the University of Leeds Be Curious event – do come along and see our work! Information here: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/info/4000/around_campus/460/be_curious_festival-about_leeds_and_yorkshire