Review into Alderney occupation will avoid “holocaust hypocrisy”

Tuesday 25 July 2023

An avid campaigner for uncovering the harrowing truth of Alderney through the occupation has welcomed a future inquiry into the atrocities that happened there.

Marcus Roberts is a Holocaust historian and founder of jTrails, an organisation that has developed 30 Jewish heritage trails in England to celebrate Jewish cultural heritage in Britain.

He has dedicated substantial amounts of time into understanding what happened in Alderney while it was occupied by the Nazis during World War II. Most recently, he published an investigative piece into the Pantcheff Report.

Theodore Pantchett

Captain Theodore Pantchett travelled to Alderney after the war to document war crimes and his final report recorded at least 337 deaths.

The document was reportedly added to the Island Archives in Guernsey after being stored in Moscow for decades.

In an excerpt from Mr Roberts’ investigation in the Alderney News, he said:

“Pantcheff is also explicit about the arithmetic of death on the island. He concludes that there were at least 337 deaths, as repeated in his later book, but with the important explicit admission that 'it cannot definitely be stated that the total figure of 337 graves necessarily represents the total number of foreigners dead on the island'.

“In fact, the report containsnumerous witness statements giving much higher death rates and reports of fatalities. If the numbers quoted from individual witnesses in this report - omitting the many other examples in the public files, but not repeated in the report - are counted up, this gives over 3,000 deaths in this report alone.

“Meanwhile, specific examples indicate that some cohorts of prisoners saw a 90% mortality rate, and support my view, and that of others, that the numbers of deaths on Alderney meant that a majority of prisoners did not survive the experience.”

What does Mr Roberts say now?

The UK Government has now announced its intention to undertake a full inquiry into the occupation of Alderney.

Express reached out to Mr Roberts to find out what he has to say about this most recent development:

“I welcome the review, as I have campaigned for this for a number of years, particularly as it has become evident through my research and that of others that the received historical account of events and number of deaths is simply inadequate and that the cover-up of German war-crimes and of the Holocaust on British soil by the British Government is simple historical fact, not 'conspiracy theory'.

“My article two years ago with Gabriel Pogrund at the Sunday Times, showed the British withheld vital evidence that should have been used in the prosecution of SS camp leaders by the French military tribunal and thus thwarted justice to French Jewish victims.

“Several SS mass-murderers operated on Alderney, including Kurt Klebeck, who was accused of killing 350 prisoners at SS Lager Sylt and another 350 prisoners in a German camp and alsooperated as a group commander for a number of camps in Germany.

“My research, based on a survey of high quality survivor testimony, indicates that thousands probably died on Alderney... last year I carried out an aerial survey which showed the survival of a potential Jewish mass grave pit at Longis Common, as indicated by the testimony of George Pope and additionally, I spotted another probable mass grave site near to Fort Albert (next to reported SS executions sites and Jewish work-sites) missed by other researchers (but who have noted possible additional graves to the Eastern side).

“My research has also shown that the number of Jews taken to Alderney and the Channel Islands as slave labourers and political prisoners has not been properly recognised and is considerably higher than acknowledged.

“In particular, I was able to tell the full story of the transport of 850+ Jews from Drancy camp to Alderney in 1943 as part of Transport 641 for the first time in the Alderney Press and my research has found numerous statements from both survivors and Germans that there had been a plan to exterminate the 850 French Jews on 4 May, 1944, but it was called off at the last moment by the island commander.

“I believe the review has been necessitated because the UK Government will have the Chair of the IHRA in 2024 and without the inquiry the British Government would have been accused of 'Holocaust hypocrisy' and it could also have derailed efforts to build the UK Holocaust Memorial at Westminster, which is over-committed to the stories of the Kindertransport and the Windermere Boys.

“I also sent a request to King Charles to consider visiting the site of SS Lager Sylt, during his official planned visit to Alderney and I am sure that the diplomatic problems that could have been created by the King fulfilling one of his key official roles in simply paying respects to Holocaust victims on Sovereign British soil would have been noted. The review will need to be genuinely independent and open and there must not be the impression that the UK Government is 'marking its own homework'.”