Bradford, England
The textile mill city of Bradford developed as possibly the largest hub of Lithuanian DPs in Britain, with some 1000 of them living here in the early 1950s after having fled Lithuania due to the Soviet occupation and genocide there. In Britain, they first had to live and work at pre-determined locations but then were allowed to freely move, many of them choosing Bradford.

Former textile mills on the Bradford skyline
Bradford Lithuanian Club “Vytis”
The hub of their activities was Lithuanian Club “Vytis” located at 5 Oak Villas. Opened in 1956 as Yorkshire Lithuanian Club, it was renamed „Vytis“ in 1958 after the Lithuanian coat of arms.
The building acquired for the club was a regular house. Then it was transformed to include a hall and a Lithuanian canteen. There was also a Lithuanian language school teaching the DP kids. However, the activities slowly dwindled, with the school having 57 kids in 1957, 23 kids in 1960, and closed for good in 1967.

The building of Lithuanian Club "Vytis"
The reasons for this were faster-than-elsewhere assimilation where discrimination often caused the children to disassociate themselves from their Lithuanian roots despite their parents’ wishes, as well as massive further emigration into the USA, where more than half of Bradford Lithuanians left by some 1960.
Bradford Lithuanian Club was closed and sold ~2002, essentially having served only a single generation of Lithuanians. By that time, there was already a new wave of immigration from Lithuania but the patriotic DPs and the new economic migrants often lacked common ground, with the DPs feeling used by the new immigrants. Currently, the house is used as a family home again.

A book of the now-closed Bradford Lithuanian Club
Bradford Captive Nations Plaque
Campaigning for the freedom of Soviet-occupied Lithuania was a major activity of Lithuanian DPs. They sought to remind regular British people of the plight of Lithuania so they would not forget the Soviet occupation there.
In Bradford, Lithuanians joined their hands with Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians, Hungarians, and Belarusians of similar fate to unveil a Freedom for Nations plaque in the XV century Cathedral of Bradford. Consisting of all the country flags, the plaque was unveiled by local and Eastern European clergy alike and celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations and the 20th anniversary of the Captive Nations Committee, two of the Central and Eastern European refugee organizations that campaigned for the end of communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe (as the plaque says, “whose countries are denied their freedom”).

Bradford Cathedral where the plaque is located at

Captive Nations Plaque in the Bradford Cathedral
Lithuanian graves in Bradford
Unlike in London, Nottingham, or Manchester, Lithuanians don’t have their own zone in any Bradford cemetery but many of them are buried in the Bowling Cemetery. Lithuanian DP gravestones often incorporate patriotic motifs with quotes like “Ilsėkis ramybėje toli nuo Tėvynės” (“Rest in peace far from homeland”), “In memory of a Lithuanian – tu jį nors atmint ar atminsi kada, tu – jo numylėta Tėvynė” (“Will you at least remember him some time, his beloved Homeland?”), “Išklydome klaikiais tremties keliais ir tik pas Viešpatį Dievą vėl busime kartu” (“We left in horrible paths of exile and only at the God Almighty we will be together”). Despite some of them spending the majority of their lives in Britain, Lithuania remained the homeland for them, unlike for their children's generation.

A second-wave Lithuanian grave in Bradford with a Lithuanian tricolor put around it by the third-wave caretakers
Lithuanian tree in Leeds
Rather few recent Lithuanian immigrants chose Bradford, however, much more of them live in nearby Leeds, which now became a center for Lithuanian activities in this part of England. Lacking their own clubhouse, Lithuanians now rent premises from the Leeds Ukrainian Club for their Saturday school and activities. Not far away from that club in Potternewton Park, Leeds Lithuanians planted a tree to commemorate 100 years of restored Lithuania (1918-2018). The tree is marked by a small plaque where the reason of its planting is explained.

Leeds Lithuanian community near the tree they planted

Plaque at the tree. Photo by Ruta Kisio.
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