A MAN who came to Bradford on the Kindertransport to escape the Nazis during the Second World War has died, aged 91.

Lutz Zeisler came here from Berlin in March, 1939.

Nigel Grizzard, a historian of Bradford Jewry, met him in 1989 during the making of a TV documentary about boys who came on the Kindertransport 50 years earlier to make new lives in Bradford.

“The Bradford Jewish Community raised money to kit out the hostel in Queen’s Road, Manningham, and sent two ladies down to Dovercourt to bring back 25 girls to the city. They returned with 25 boys, of whom Lutz was one,” said Mr Grizzard.

Before coming to Bradford, Mr Zeisler had been interned along with other Jewish boys in a hostel on the Isle of Man, where he got into trouble with the authorities for posting a letter to his relatives on the Continent rather than using official Red Cross Channels.

After the war he remained in Bradford and worked in the textile industry, before becoming a school crossing patrolman at Drummond Road Middle School.

“He was there shepherding the children across the road day in day out, even while national and world TV cameras filmed the demonstrations against the school’s headt eacher, Raymond Honeyford,” said Mr Grizzard.

“Lutz was a great chess player, he had a fine mind and a wonderful smile. I can see him clearly, in huge yellow coat, black peaked cap carrying his lollipop sign, stopping the traffic in Carlisle Road.”

Mr Zeisler’s widowed mother was killed in the Holocaust. His brother lived in Leeds and his sister in Keighley, before moving to Guernsey.

In the later years of his life, Mr Zeisler lived at Donisthorpe Hall in Leeds. He has been buried at New Farnley Jewish Cemetery in Leeds.

“On behalf of those who made the historic journey on the Kindertransport and their descendants and the Jews of Bradford I say farewell to Lutz,” said Mr Grizzard.