"Absolutely wrong to say nothing happened on Alderney"

Monday 15 July 2019

Experts from around Europe are to advise the States of Alderney on how best to preserve their most sensitive Second World War sites – and potentially help establish just how many forced labourers lost their lives on the island.

The news came as the Right Honourable Lord Eric Pickles, the UK's special envoy for Post-Holocaust issues, led a delegation on a tour of sites including Lager Sylt, the only SS-run camp on British soil, and Longis Common, which contains a burial ground of murdered prisoners.

He explained that the visit was the first stage in an international mission to provide expert guidance on how those sites can best be preserved and honoured in perpetuity.

The visit came weeks after a controversial TV documentary aired which once again attempted to shine a spotlight on the scale of killing on Alderney during the occupation, called Adolf Island.

Film makers leveled strong criticism at the States of Alderney for preventing them from digging at Lagar Sylt.

Sites like the Lager Sylt and Longis Common have proved a difficult heritage for successive governments on Alderney. Arguments have been made for turning them into visitor attractions, erecting memorials and allowing large scale excavations.

TV companies have found the sites irresistible, with waves of documentary makers traveling to Alderney to make films about that part of Alderney's history. Jewish groups meanwhile, have impressed upon the States that disturbing Jewish graves is unlawful according to their beliefs.

Recently, all of the forced labour camp sites, which are on a mixture of States and privately owned land, were given special protections under the Land Use Plan.

Lord Pickles said in September a delegation of academics would visit Alderney on behalf of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. They aimed to investigate and map the sites and discuss best practice with the States on how they could be managed and preserved in the future.

"In the last few months Jersey and Guernsey have become members of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which is building a memorial and learning centre near Parliament," said Lord Pickles. "The Channel Islands will play an enormously important part in that. I came to Alderney because its history is so central to it."

He said he appreciated the tensions on the island that exist around investigating and managing Lager Sylt and Longis Common – calling some of the past proposals for investigating and exploiting them "iffy" - but said  he was in favour of establishing the truth about the numbers of war dead on Alderney.

Alderney resident Billy Bohan, Dr Gilly Carr, Sally Seale, Lord Pickles, States of Alderney President William Tate, Frances Short, States of Alderney CEO Andrew Muter and Sally Bohan (whose family built the Hammond Memorial). 

Technology is developing all the time, Lord Pickles pointed out, and in future decades non-invasive survey techniques could advance sufficiently to provide more information about what was below ground.

"There seems to be a mish mash of people saying nothing actually happened which is absolutely wrong. By and large my experience is that the Nazis were not health and safety conscious and they won't have looked after slave workers here and they will have been disposed of.

"We need to take people on various stages of discovery without having to take up positions. I'm here to start the process of doing it in a non confrontational and non judgemental way with no preconceived ideas of what we will find.

"The important thing is to record what happened and to preserve these sites. In September a number of experts who have seen these kinds of sites in the past will be able to suggest a framework on how to move forward in Alderney."

Pictured top: Lord Pickles, local historian Colin Partridge and States of Alderney CEO Andrew Muter at the Hammond Memorial, with Mr Partridge pointing out the location of a burial ground of WW2 prisoners of war.