Great Escape Project

The "Great Escape" and the "Shetland bus" - two sides of the coin that shaped the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees

The University of the Highlands has partnered with the Estonian War Museum to carry out a project to examine the the role played by the Shetland Islands, and islanders, during the Second World War and in particular the influx of refugees during 1940-42 from Norway on a flotilla of small boats.

As part of this strand of the wider project 6 events were organised which are detailed in the document Project events-en.docx

More details about the project can be found on the Estonian War Museum (EWM) website at: EWM research pages. There is also an ongoing exhibition at EWM drawning on all the information available on this subject, see a summary of the exhibition work on their exhibition webpages.

The project was funded with support of the European Union under the programme “Europe for Citizens”.

 

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The International partners in this project are:

Estonian War Museum

University of the Highlands and Islands

The Baltic Initiative and Network

Estonian Heritage Society

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UHI contact for this project is Andrew Jennings

Email: Andrew.jennings@uhi.ac.uk

Phone: 01595 771406