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Irish Independent
3 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Independent
‘Britain Under the Nazis' review: Riveting documentary lifts the lid on the Nazis' overlooked occupation of the Channel Islands
Strangely, the factual story of Germany's five-year occupation of the Channel Islands has been, if not exactly ignored, notably under-exploited by fiction writers, historians and even documentarians. The superb two-part documentary Britain Under the Nazis: The Forgotten Occupation (Channel 4, Thursday, May 29, 8pm) should go some way towards rectifying the imbalance. Winston Churchill's famous 'we shall fight on the beaches' speech didn't extend to the beaches of Guernsey, Jersey or their neighbouring islands, despite his pledge to defend them. Since the islands were of no strategic importance, he withdrew all military presence from them on June 14, 1940, leaving 94,000 islanders on Guernsey to fend for themselves. Ships were laid on for those who wished to evacuate and 25,000 people left. But a breakdown in communication meant Germany didn't know the islands had been demilitarised. On June 30, the Luftwaffe struck, killing 44 people. The occupation proper began on July 1. Director Jack Warrender's film uses the first-hand testimony of islanders, drawn from their personal diaries, to tell the story of life under occupation, while historians Prof Gilly Carr and Dr Louise Willmot provide context with a light touch. Actors deliver the words straight to camera. Despite the irritating tic of occasionally showing the camera crew filming them, which takes us out of the story a little, it's a riveting account of a complex chapter in wartime history. 'I feel the tremor of bombs being dropped in the distance,' wrote Frank Falla, a reporter with the Guernsey Star. 'For the first time since the outbreak of the war, the full impact of what it means hits me. Despite the sunshine, I feel cold.' With one German soldier for every three islanders and the Swastika raised over government buildings, it must have felt like the war had already been lost. Falla and his colleagues had opted to remain at their desks, even if it meant being censored by the Nazis, rather than let the newspaper come completely under their control. ADVERTISEMENT Learn more He and others distributed their own underground newsletter featuring the news from the BBC. Hitler regarded seizing the Channel Islands as a valuable propaganda tool, even to the extent of drafting in slave labourers to build the Atlantic Wall. A picture in a Wehrmacht newspaper showed some islanders seemingly giving the Nazi salute. In fact, they were raising their hands in response to being asked if they spoke French or German. One Jersey islander who tried to spread the truth was artist and anti-fascist activist Claude Cahun, who shared a house with her 'stepsister' – in reality, her lifelong partner. As a lesbian and a Jew, she was in double peril. Nonetheless, she tried to persuade German soldiers to rebel by distributing notes she described as her 'paper bullets'. Viewed as incitement to mutiny, this was punishable by death. Women who had affairs, and even babies, with German soldiers were labelled 'Jerrybags' and ostracised after the war In one startling diary extract, Jersey's bailiff Alexander Coutanche wrote of keeping relations with the German officer in charge cordial. 'We agree mutually that we are enemies, but at least we can behave like gentlemen.' Things weren't quite so cordial later in the occupation when the mass deportation of Jews, as well as residents born elsewhere, began, and when concentration camps were built on Alderney. The tiny island is officially recognised as a Holocaust site. The lone German voice here is that of German officer Hans Max von Aufsess, who appears to have treated his time on Jersey as a holiday. He wrote euphemistically about the 'good understanding between German soldiers and English girls'. Women who had affairs, and even babies, with German soldiers were labelled 'Jerrybags' and ostracised after the war. Eighty years on, the collaboration, whether sexual or otherwise, of some islanders with the Nazis has left scars that still hurt. Both episodes of 'Britain Under the Nazis' are streaming on from today. Rating: Five stars
Business Mayor
09-05-2025
- Business Mayor
‘One bunker is now a surf school': a tour of Jersey's wartime coastal defences
I 'm woken by a tractor uprooting jersey royals in the potato field next door. In my simple hexagonal room, dawn illuminates five high slit windows marked with military coordinates and a compass etched into the ceiling. But heading downstairs, I timeslip into a 19th-century lounge where gothic-style windows frame sea views in three directions. During the second world war, Jersey's occupying forces requisitioned Nicolle Tower, a whimsical two-storey folly, and added an extra level. In what is now the bedroom, German soldiers kept lookout for an allied invasion that never came. Nicolle Tower, where German soldiers kept watch. Photograph: Debbie Ward It's thanks to restoration charity the Landmark Trust that I'm enjoying this hilltop tower. Inland from Le Hocq beach, it is now a self-catering holiday let. It's unique, yet one of a staggering 1,200 fortifications on Jersey, the Channel Islands having served as a showcase for Hitler's Atlantic Wall defences. During my 1980s childhood holidays, abandoned bunkers invited exploration and sibling jump scares. Now, on the 80th anniversary of liberation, which came on 9 May 1945 (a day after the German forces on mainland Europe surrendered), I want to discover how some of these structures have found a new lease of life. I start in an underground hospital hewn into rock. It never treated battle casualties; instead, a postwar farmer used its extensive passages to cultivate mushrooms. Now it houses Jersey War Tunnels, the museum of the island's almost five-year occupation. A tank on display at the Jersey War Tunnels museum. Photograph: Visit Jersey I learn about the scramble for evacuation, how remaining residents swapped meagre rations through newspaper personal ads, and about Organisation Todt, the huge Nazi construction operation that saw hundreds of fortifications built. Hand tool marks can still be seen in half-finished sections of the tunnels, one of which has lighting effects to simulate a rock fall. Elsewhere, amid islanders' personal stories are interactive exhibits posing the ethical dilemmas they faced, such as whether to launder a German uniform in exchange for food. That evening, I join nonprofit Jersey War Tours inside a resistance nest set into the sea wall at St Aubin's Bay. Our guide, Phil Marett, winds a hatch and sweeps the anti-tank gun over a deserted beach, demonstrating how soldiers were primed for a D-day-like scenario. Inland at Le Coin Varin, a farmer's field contains a huge block-shaped battle headquarters. Once poorly disguised as a house, its chimneys hid periscopes. Time has laced the outside with vines, but inside, acrid-smelling rooms are blackened by modern fire brigade drills. Nearby, Marett points out an oddly shaped bungalow that the homeowners built around another abandoned bunker. Waves crash below the wild headland of our final stop, Noirmont Point, where, amid the gorse, a crack of light entices us into Battery Lothringen. In a restored two-storey subterranean command bunker, I note the poignant bunk-side photo of an elderly German man who returned here as a tourist. Original graffiti at Battery Lothringen. Photograph: Debbie Ward Compared with that austere, imposing space, the cosy hexagonal lounge of Nicolle Tower feels like a trinket box. Its bookcases hold a thoughtful selection relating to Jersey's nature and history, but having stayed in other Landmarks, I seek the logbook first. Completed by visitors, this is part diary, part crowd-sourced guidebook and always charming. At a sea view writing desk, I turn the pages and smile at former guests' tales of big birthdays and marriage proposals and a naked yoga session interrupted by a dog walker. Many have left recommendations for walking routes and pubs. A few have contributed affectionate watercolours of the folly. Next day, I head to Faulkner Fisheries, a fishmonger and cafe based inside a former bunker for 45 years that lies on a rocky peninsula to the north of St Ouen's Bay, the largest of Jersey's sandy beaches. Lobsters destined for the lunchtime barbecue shuffle inside seawater pools flushed via pipes converted from wartime ventilation shafts. 'In the end tank, where the crabs are, there was a gun pointed towards Guernsey,' owner Sean Faulkner tells me as he shows me around. 'The office was originally another machine gun post.' Based inside a bunker, Faulkner Fisheries keeps its lobsters where a gun post once stood. Photograph: Danny Evans Faulkner grew up on a farm opposite, playing in the bunker as a child and diving for crabs to sell from a junkyard pram. After a career in the merchant navy, his youthful exploits became his business. As I enjoy huge, garlicky scallops at a picnic table, watching the waves glint in the sunlight, the plump seafood, barbecue aroma and 5-mile (8km) surfing beach suddenly recall Australia. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Later, on a cobbled slipway, I spot a smaller bunker housing boards and wetsuits. Jersey Surf School is painted on its original, still sturdy metal doors. Water ingress is never a problem, owner Jake Powell tells me, before reminiscing about teenage parties around a bar he constructed in another bunker. Jersey's vast tidal range reveals extensive rockpools, not least at La Corbière lighthouse, where I linger for the celebrated sunset view. Standing sentinel opposite is the Radio Tower, a German range-finding post. For years, a coastguard headquarters, it has since found a third use as holiday accommodation. The charity Jersey Heritage oversees this and other fortifications, from German-adapted martello towers to a 1940s bunker turned cold war shelter, many open to visitors. Chief executive Jon Carter acknowledges their tourist interest. 'They were all built in the most scenic places with the best views because that was the idea – they were observational and they wanted arcs of fire,' he tells me over tea. The celebrated sunset view at La Corbière lighthouse, Jersey. Photograph: Max Burnett The metres-thick reinforced concrete of these mass bunkers makes their destruction unviable. The mixture of abandonment, historical reconstruction and pragmatic reuse I've seen reflects decades of fluctuating attitudes. Any continued discomfort about the structures' presence is now less about why they were built than how, Carter explains. The back-breaking work often fell to prisoners of war and forced labourers. At the government's behest, Jersey Heritage is working with volunteer preservationists the Channel Islands Occupation Society to consider the reuse of 70 state-owned fortifications too, connecting with those 'wrestling with the same conundrums' along the Atlantic Wall. Carter anticipates a continued mixture of 'selective preservation' and 'contemporary use'. Next, I visit the island's newest fortification museum St Catherine's Bunker, which Marett dubs 'a real Bond villain lair'. Its cliff-face gun post fronts substantial German-built tunnels. For years, though, this was a fish market. Like the bunker turned toilets I discover on my childhood beach, it feels an ironic counterpoint to hubris. Ten minutes away, I lunch at Driftwood Cafe at Archirondel Beach. As I tuck into thick crab sandwiches opposite the French coast, fisherwoman and cafe owner Gabby Mason tells me she'll be at sea over the Liberation 80 weekend, her boat decked in flags. From today into next week, there will be street parties, an international music festival and historical re-enactments, including, in St Helier, British soldiers raising the union jack above Liberation Square, so named in 1995 to celebrate 50 years since the end of occupation. The Landmark Trust is also celebrating – 60 years of restorations. Before I leave Nicolle Tower, I take in those glorious views a final time and add a logbook entry, my own sliver in the multilayered history of this building and this island.
The Guardian
08-05-2025
- The Guardian
‘One bunker is now a surf school': a tour of Jersey's wartime coastal defences
I 'm woken by a tractor uprooting jersey royals in the potato field next door. In my simple hexagonal room, dawn illuminates five high slit windows marked with military coordinates and a compass etched into the ceiling. But heading downstairs, I timeslip into a 19th-century lounge where gothic-style windows frame sea views in three directions. During the second world war, Jersey's occupying forces requisitioned Nicolle Tower, a whimsical two-storey folly, and added an extra level. In what is now the bedroom, German soldiers kept lookout for an allied invasion that never came. Nicolle Tower, where German soldiers kept watch. Photograph: Debbie Ward It's thanks to restoration charity the Landmark Trust that I'm enjoying this hilltop tower. Inland from Le Hocq beach, it is now a self-catering holiday let. It's unique, yet one of a staggering 1,200 fortifications on Jersey, the Channel Islands having served as a showcase for Hitler's Atlantic Wall defences. During my 1980s childhood holidays, abandoned bunkers invited exploration and sibling jump scares. Now, on the 80th anniversary of liberation, which came on 9 May 1945 (a day after the German forces on mainland Europe surrendered), I want to discover how some of these structures have found a new lease of life. I start in an underground hospital hewn into rock. It never treated battle casualties; instead, a postwar farmer used its extensive passages to cultivate mushrooms. Now it houses Jersey War Tunnels, the museum of the island's almost five-year occupation. A tank on display at the Jersey War Tunnels museum. Photograph: Visit Jersey I learn about the scramble for evacuation, how remaining residents swapped meagre rations through newspaper personal ads, and about Organisation Todt, the huge Nazi construction operation that saw hundreds of fortifications built. Hand tool marks can still be seen in half-finished sections of the tunnels, one of which has lighting effects to simulate a rock fall. Elsewhere, amid islanders' personal stories are interactive exhibits posing the ethical dilemmas they faced, such as whether to launder a German uniform in exchange for food. That evening, I join nonprofit Jersey War Tours inside a resistance nest set into the sea wall at St Aubin's Bay. Our guide, Phil Marett, winds a hatch and sweeps the anti-tank gun over a deserted beach, demonstrating how soldiers were primed for a D-day-like scenario. Inland at Le Coin Varin, a farmer's field contains a huge block-shaped battle headquarters. Once poorly disguised as a house, its chimneys hid periscopes. Time has laced the outside with vines, but inside, acrid-smelling rooms are blackened by modern fire brigade drills. Nearby, Marett points out an oddly shaped bungalow that the homeowners built around another abandoned bunker. Waves crash below the wild headland of our final stop, Noirmont Point, where, amid the gorse, a crack of light entices us into Battery Lothringen. In a restored two-storey subterranean command bunker, I note the poignant bunk-side photo of an elderly German man who returned here as a tourist. Original graffiti at Battery Lothringen. Photograph: Debbie Ward Compared with that austere, imposing space, the cosy hexagonal lounge of Nicolle Tower feels like a trinket box. Its bookcases hold a thoughtful selection relating to Jersey's nature and history, but having stayed in other Landmarks, I seek the logbook first. Completed by visitors, this is part diary, part crowd-sourced guidebook and always charming. At a sea view writing desk, I turn the pages and smile at former guests' tales of big birthdays and marriage proposals and a naked yoga session interrupted by a dog walker. Many have left recommendations for walking routes and pubs. A few have contributed affectionate watercolours of the folly. Next day, I head to Faulkner Fisheries, a fishmonger and cafe based inside a former bunker for 45 years that lies on a rocky peninsula to the north of St Ouen's Bay, the largest of Jersey's sandy beaches. Lobsters destined for the lunchtime barbecue shuffle inside seawater pools flushed via pipes converted from wartime ventilation shafts. 'In the end tank, where the crabs are, there was a gun pointed towards Guernsey,' owner Sean Faulkner tells me as he shows me around. 'The office was originally another machine gun post.' Based inside a bunker, Faulkner Fisheries keeps its lobsters where a gun post once stood. Photograph: Danny Evans Faulkner grew up on a farm opposite, playing in the bunker as a child and diving for crabs to sell from a junkyard pram. After a career in the merchant navy, his youthful exploits became his business. As I enjoy huge, garlicky scallops at a picnic table, watching the waves glint in the sunlight, the plump seafood, barbecue aroma and 5-mile (8km) surfing beach suddenly recall Australia. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Later, on a cobbled slipway, I spot a smaller bunker housing boards and wetsuits. Jersey Surf School is painted on its original, still sturdy metal doors. Water ingress is never a problem, owner Jake Powell tells me, before reminiscing about teenage parties around a bar he constructed in another bunker. Jersey's vast tidal range reveals extensive rockpools, not least at La Corbière lighthouse, where I linger for the celebrated sunset view. Standing sentinel opposite is the Radio Tower, a German range-finding post. For years, a coastguard headquarters, it has since found a third use as holiday accommodation. The charity Jersey Heritage oversees this and other fortifications, from German-adapted martello towers to a 1940s bunker turned cold war shelter, many open to visitors. Chief executive Jon Carter acknowledges their tourist interest. 'They were all built in the most scenic places with the best views because that was the idea – they were observational and they wanted arcs of fire,' he tells me over tea. The celebrated sunset view at La Corbière lighthouse, Jersey. Photograph: Max Burnett The metres-thick reinforced concrete of these mass bunkers makes their destruction unviable. The mixture of abandonment, historical reconstruction and pragmatic reuse I've seen reflects decades of fluctuating attitudes. Any continued discomfort about the structures' presence is now less about why they were built than how, Carter explains. The back-breaking work often fell to prisoners of war and forced labourers. At the government's behest, Jersey Heritage is working with volunteer preservationists the Channel Islands Occupation Society to consider the reuse of 70 state-owned fortifications too, connecting with those 'wrestling with the same conundrums' along the Atlantic Wall. Carter anticipates a continued mixture of 'selective preservation' and 'contemporary use'. Next, I visit the island's newest fortification museum St Catherine's Bunker, which Marett dubs 'a real Bond villain lair'. Its cliff-face gun post fronts substantial German-built tunnels. For years, though, this was a fish market. Like the bunker turned toilets I discover on my childhood beach, it feels an ironic counterpoint to hubris. Ten minutes away, I lunch at Driftwood Cafe at Archirondel Beach. As I tuck into thick crab sandwiches opposite the French coast, fisherwoman and cafe owner Gabby Mason tells me she'll be at sea over the Liberation 80 weekend, her boat decked in flags. From today into next week, there will be street parties, an international music festival and historical re-enactments, including, in St Helier, British soldiers raising the union jack above Liberation Square, so named in 1995 to celebrate 50 years since the end of occupation. The Landmark Trust is also celebrating – 60 years of restorations. Before I leave Nicolle Tower, I take in those glorious views a final time and add a logbook entry, my own sliver in the multilayered history of this building and this island. This trip was facilitated by the Landmark Trust and Visit Jersey . Nicolle Tower sleeps two and is available from £180 for four nights .
Glasgow Times
06-05-2025
- General
- Glasgow Times
Holocaust survivor thanks those who took ‘high risks' to help Jews during war
Jacques Weisser, 83, was born in Antwerp during the war and subsequently hidden when his parents were taken to Auschwitz concentration camp. He was one of 22 Holocaust survivors and Second World War refugees who attended a VE Day tea party organised by the Association of Jewish Refugees at the Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum in north London on Tuesday. Survivors and their descendants were given a tour of wartime RAF fighter planes and listened to a swing band perform. Mr Weisser said: 'My father survived Auschwitz. My mother did not. 'It's all luck. We are the lucky ones. We have a lot to be thankful for. 'People took such high risks with their own lives and their families. We owe them so much. Sadly, there weren't enough of them.' Henny Franks, aged 101, escaped to the UK in February 1939 (Yui Mok/PA) Mr Weisser's father Jacob was initially sent as a slave labourer to build the Atlantic Wall during the war before being sent to several camps. His mother Martha was sent to Mechelen, Antwerp and from there to Auschwitz. Before he was even a year old, Mr Weisser was brought to a children's home in 1942 after his mother's deportation and was later hidden in Sint Erasmus hospital. The RAF hosted the special event ahead of the 80th anniversary of VE Day (Yui Mok/PA) His father was eventually reunited with Jacques in the Ardennes forest, his latest hiding place, at the end of the war. Henny Franks, 101, escaped to the UK in 1939 via a Kindertransport with her younger sister. She said: 'I've lived a happy life. I was lucky enough that when I came to England, my father's first cousin from Poland took me in. 'I've been brought up to be happy. I am in contact with some others (refugees) but I'm about one of the oldest.' Holocaust survivors, refugees and descendants took part in the special event (Yui Mok/PA) Mrs Franks, who trained in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in the British Army when she was 19, added: 'I love England very much. I felt so proud to be in the army. I did my bit. 'I met all these lovely, lovely people. And in the army I met all my Jewish friends.' Mrs Franks was awarded the Defence Medal, the War Medal 1939-45 and the HM Armed Forces Veteran Badge in 2023 when she turned 100, and said she was surprised because 'I didn't know I was eligible'. Maurice Peltz was four years old when his family escaped Poland. He said he was a keen dancer growing up and danced with the Princess of Wales at a survivors' ceremony at the Guildhall in January. The 98-year-old said: 'She's a charming person. I said: 'I shall dance with you,' and she said: 'That would be nice.''
Belfast Telegraph
06-05-2025
- General
- Belfast Telegraph
Holocaust survivor thanks those who took ‘high risks' to help Jews during war
Jacques Weisser, 83, was born in Antwerp during the war and subsequently hidden when his parents were taken to Auschwitz concentration camp. He was one of 22 Holocaust survivors and Second World War refugees who attended a VE Day tea party organised by the Association of Jewish Refugees at the Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum in north London on Tuesday. Survivors and their descendants were given a tour of wartime RAF fighter planes and listened to a swing band perform. Mr Weisser said: 'My father survived Auschwitz. My mother did not. 'It's all luck. We are the lucky ones. We have a lot to be thankful for. 'People took such high risks with their own lives and their families. We owe them so much. Sadly, there weren't enough of them.' Mr Weisser's father Jacob was initially sent as a slave labourer to build the Atlantic Wall during the war before being sent to several camps. His mother Martha was sent to Mechelen, Antwerp and from there to Auschwitz. Before he was even a year old, Mr Weisser was brought to a children's home in 1942 after his mother's deportation and was later hidden in Sint Erasmus hospital. His father was eventually reunited with Jacques in the Ardennes forest, his latest hiding place, at the end of the war. Henny Franks, 101, escaped to the UK in 1939 via a Kindertransport with her younger sister. She said: 'I've lived a happy life. I was lucky enough that when I came to England, my father's first cousin from Poland took me in. 'I've been brought up to be happy. I am in contact with some others (refugees) but I'm about one of the oldest.' Mrs Franks, who trained in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in the British Army when she was 19, added: 'I love England very much. I felt so proud to be in the army. I did my bit. 'I met all these lovely, lovely people. And in the army I met all my Jewish friends.' Mrs Franks was awarded the Defence Medal, the War Medal 1939-45 and the HM Armed Forces Veteran Badge in 2023 when she turned 100, and said she was surprised because 'I didn't know I was eligible'. Maurice Peltz was four years old when his family escaped Poland. He said he was a keen dancer growing up and danced with the Princess of Wales at a survivors' ceremony at the Guildhall in January. The 98-year-old said: 'She's a charming person. I said: 'I shall dance with you,' and she said: 'That would be nice.''
