During the German wartime occupation of the Channel Islands in Britain, Nazi occupation was characterised by harsh repressive measures against minority groups and the establishment of exterminatory concentration camps on the island of Alderney. However, despite widespread circumstantial evidence depicting the violence promulgated on Alderney, the victims have still not yet received official commemoration from the British government. As a result, many citizens have been left unaware of their own country’s experience with the Holocaust. The absence of widespread awareness of what occurred on Alderney continues to undermine attempts at Holocaust remembrance in Britain to this day.

THE CAMPS OF LAGER SYLT AND LAGER NORDERNEY

The camps established in Alderney housed forced labourers working for the Organisation Todt (OT), the Nazi construction organisation. Altogether, around 4,000 workers from OT were incarcerated on Alderney. Estimates for the total loss of life are exceptionally varied. However, recent studies have consistently indicated that well over 1,000 prisoners died on Alderney alone 

Out of the four main camps (Norderney, Helgoland, Borkum, and Sylt), Norderney and Sylt were controlled by the Totenkopfverbank (Death’s Head) section of the SS from March 1943 and operated as a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp in Hamburg. The majority of the prisoners in the camps were from the German eastern occupied territories in Ukraine, Poland, and Russia. Another group of between 1,000-2,000 French Jews also made up a significant number of the slave labourers.

Recent research into the camp conditions, by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, has indicated that the inhospitable living and working conditions caused many forced labourers to quickly die or become incapacitated while in Alderney.  Prisoners carried out twelve-hour working days of heavy physical labour in the construction of tunnels, roads, and military hospitals, with death through labour being the common factor in the high fatality rate in Alderney. Even if the unfit slave labourers did not succumb to death through labour, they were then immediately transported to an extermination camp on the continent instead.

As a result of both a post-war lack of interest and the destruction of documents relating to the death toll in Alderney, no definitive figure exists detailing the number of workers who died in Alderney or following deportation to camps on the continent. The current list of 450 identified slave labourer deaths in Alderney is far from representative of the total number who perished.

There are an extremely limited number of first-hand accounts detailing the violence in the camps. However, the following passage from survivor William Wernegau helps to illustrate the barbarity shown towards prisoners in Alderney: “around five hundred men had died from being murdered, from work, from starvation, and from the climate. Some were beaten to death and many more were strangled. The most popular form of killing by the SS in Sylt was strangulation”.

In spite of the evidence detailing the crimes that took place on Alderney, the island has failed to appropriately act to commemorate and memorialise the sites of genocide. The decision not to preserve the camps as sites of education has led to the camps slipping into the realm of historical obscurity. In fact, many British citizens have no knowledge that there were concentration camps on British soil during the Second World War at all. 

“THE ISLAND OF SILENCE”

The victims of Nazism in the Channel Islands have a conflicting experience of the war. Regardless of the suffering that they endured under occupation; their wartime narrative is perceived as one of victory. As Gilly Carr states in her exhibition on the Channel Island camps; “their story has been largely omitted from a British narrative of ‘standing alone’ against Nazism”. Alderney’s governing body have continuously declined to commemorate the sites of the camps, potentially with the ambition to dissociate the civil authorities from allegations of wartime collaboration. Aside from a small plaque at Lager Sylt organised by former Polish prisoners, the camps have no identifying features. Perhaps most disconcerting is the transformation of Lager Norderney into the island’s main tourist camping site. Alderney’s nickname of the “Island of Silence” is undoubtedly appropriate, given the island’s lack of effort put into investigating what occurred there during occupation.

The absence of post-war investigation ensured that none of the SS camp leaders were convicted for crimes committed on Alderney. Maximilian List, in charge of running the camps, lived untouched in Hamburg into the 1980s. In contrast to the investigations into the camps based on the continent, the fate of those incarcerated on Alderney was considered as insignificant in comparison. 

Further in contrast to Holocaust memorials across Europe, the Channel Islands have only recently begun to commemorate those who committed acts of resistance against German occupation. For many years following the cessation of hostilities in 1945, resisters were condemned as having endangered the lives of their neighbours. Those who committed acts of resistance never received public recognition by the Channel Island or UK governments in their lifetime. Unlike Jersey and Guernsey, Alderney is still yet to commemorate those who took part in resistance campaigns. However, recent grassroots campaigns and academic exhibitions have started to raise awareness for the wartime experience of the victims of Nazism on Alderney. 

RECENT COMMEMORATIVE CAMPAIGNS AND THE IMPORTANCE OF REMEMBRANCE

For those who died in the camps or for those who died after the war without receiving appropriate commemoration, recent developments in memorialising the sites of genocide have come too late. The States (i.e. Alderney’s governing body) failure to honour those who suffered under occupation has forced altruistic activists and academics to lead campaigns designed to shed light on the realities of violence across the Channel Islands. 

One such individual is Colin Partridge, whose work collating the names of those confirmed to have perished while working on one of the island’s four camps has made an enormous breakthrough on other studies concerning the occupation of Alderney. Together with colleagues, he aims to fund the unveiling of an official memorial plaque detailing all those who died. Instead of establishing occupation museums and condoning the sale of occupation souvenirs, Partridge’s activism would signify the founding of the first genuine occupation site – greater revealing the crimes perpetrated on the island and enabling commemoration of the victims.

Despite there being no human rights laws directly associated with the act of remembrance, the commemoration of Holocaust sites is a human rights imperative and a “crucial safeguard” in the prevention of future mass violations of human rights. The commemoration of Holocaust sites forms an essential component in educating people about human rights. Indeed, remembrance can serve as a crucial preventative measure against future violations of human rights and the trivialisation of crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing. In contrast, the prolonged failure to appropriately commemorate the Alderney camps has long undermined attempts at Holocaust remembrance in the United Kingdom, with successive British governments only further distancing themselves from approaching the topic head-on.

In the long run, it is clear that further research, the preservation of the sites, and clear and forthright discussion is required to uncover greater detail about the camps on Alderney. This triadic approach would help to alleviate the taboo surrounding the island’s labour camps and ensure that their existence is recognised.

Paul Le Fevre is a recent graduate from the University of St Andrews, attaining an MA (Hons) degree in Modern History. He has a keen interest in the study of genocide and ethnic cleansing - and hopes to bring attention to historically understudied marginalised groups.

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