It was during the 2016 referendum campaign that my family first realised we could restore our German citizenship, thus retaining our freedom of movement in Europe. The application seemed a bit of a faff, and not many people knew of our family’s refugee history. Adopting a new nationality had seemed ridiculous; we didn’t speak German, hadn’t lived in Germany for generations, and our family had fled in terror from the Nazis.

Fleeing to the UK in 1936, my great-grandparents Wolfgang and Lotte Krebs and their young son Peter were stateless for over a decade. First applying for British nationalisation in 1941 they were denied citizenship for 11 years, instead relying on short-term promises by the government and their employer to be able to stay living in Ipswich, where Wolf was an electrical engineer.