29-05-2025
The lesbian artist who used 'paper bullets' to defy the Nazis on occupied Channel Islands in WWII - until she and her secret lover got caught
As someone who was not afraid to pursue her individuality against the spirit of the age, she was one of a kind.
But Jewish-born surrealist writer and photographer Claude Cahun defied more than social convention.
A new two-part Channel 4 documentary reveals the extent of her bravery resisting the Nazis in the occupied Channel Islands during the Second World War.
Britain Under the Nazis: The Forgotten Occupation, tells how Cahun spent years penning 'paper bullets' - propaganda notes intended to sap the morale of German troops - and leaving them where they would be found by the enemy.
But her brave acts of resistance - carried out with her secret lover and stepsister Marcel Moore - eventually caught up with her.
She and Moore were caught by the Nazis in 1944 and sentenced to death, only to win a reprieve at the last moment.
Tonight's documentary draws from diaries and letters to reveal the extent of the hardships suffered by ordinary islanders living under Nazi rule, which began on July 1, 1940.
The Channel Islands were the only part of British territory to be occupied by Adolf Hitler's forces in the whole of the Second World War.
Cahun, who was born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob in Nantes, France, in 1894, was living in Jersey when the Nazis invaded.
Recounting the moment that German forces arrived, she wrote: 'I was standing on the lawn in front of the house watering the flowerbeds, when planes appeared.
'Flying so low that not only the crosses and other markings could be seen, but the pilots themselves.
'I think for the last three years I felt the war coming without wanting to believe it.'
The Bailiff of Jersey, Alexander Coutanche, was allowed to stay on his role under German supervision.
He described his mood of 'deep depression' when the new occupiers made clear the situation.
With France having been overrun and British forces roundly humiliated at Dunkirk, the future looked bleak for the Channel Islanders.
But Cahun was determined to fight back.
Her paper bullets were and made to look as though they had been composed by rogue German soldiers.
In them, she tried to incite mutiny and undermine troops' morale by disparaging Hitler's rule and highlighting Nazi atrocities.
Cahun also called on the soldiers to lay down their arms.
Historian Dr Louise Willmot says in tonight's programme: 'They are quite varied.
'Some are typed and they are typed really with great care.
'They range from a few lines to quite complex arguments, but they are all inciting the troops to lay down their weapons, so it is incitement to mutiny.
'She knew that is punishable by death.
'When we think about the choices people made and the dilemmas they faced, I don't think she felt that she had a choice.
'She did write that poets and artists had a duty to act, so I think she did feel it out of a sense of duty, she had to take action against the Nazis. Staggeringly brave.'
The academic also highlights how Cahun and Moore were 'hiding their relationship' while living together as step-siblings.
'They were together from very early on and stayed committed to one another all their lives,' she added.
'So it is a romantic story but it is a hidden romantic story, because the times were different and they wanted to blend in in the background.
'If you had met her before the occupation or in France in her earlier life, you would see somebody who would shave her head, the wearing of masks, concealing identity, playing with gender identity.
'She says I don't think of myself as masculine or feminine. They both had already been politically very active in the surrealist anti-Fascist movement.
'By choosing to do this work, they were saying I am prepared to die in order to do this work which is so important.'
Cahun's notes proved effective. The Germans were rattled and left convinced that there were several people involved, including rogue soldiers.
Meanwhile, other acts of resistance were bubbling up.
In June 1941, islanders responded to a radio appeal for people living under Nazi occupation to put up 'V for Victory' signs.
And journalist Frank Falla was an integral part of the Guernsey Underground News Service (GUNS), which circulated BBC news around the island after radios were confiscated.
In August 1942, Cahun was confronted with the sight of slave labourers who had been brought to Jersey to build a huge sea wall that was part of extensive fortifications of the islands.
The artist's home was just yards away from where the emaciated prisoners were forced to work.
The Nazis also deported 2,300 islanders to internment camps in France and Germany.
And on Alderney, concentration camps were built to house forced labourers.
Between 641 and 1,027 people - among them Jews, prisoners of war and some Romanis - are known to have to have died amidst the brutal conditions and savage treatment at the hands of SS guards.
Some Jewish islanders - including nurse Therese Steiner - were deported to death camps including Auschwitz.
In the summer of 1944, Cahun and Moore were arrested by the Gestapo at their home.
The couple decided to fight their corner at trial. But they were handed a death sentence, as well as six years of hard labour and nine months in prison.
But Bailiff Coutanche appealed for mercy and their death sentences were commuted.
The Channel Islands were occupied until May 9, 1945 - two days after German forces in mainland Europe had surrendered.
After their ordeal, Cahun and Moore went back to living together on Jersey. Cahun died there aged 60 in 1954.
Moore took her own life in 1972 aged 79.
Jersey Heritage, the trust which cares for the island's historic sites, has one of the biggest collections of Cahun's work in the world.
Britain Under the Nazis: The Forgotten Occupation, begins tonight on Channel 4 at 8pm.
The horror of the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands
In June 1940, the Allied forces were defeated in France.
The UK government decided the Channel Islands would be too costly to defend and began evacuating military personal and equipment.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill was reportedly reluctant to simply abandon the oldest possession of the British crown but succumbed to the reasoning of military advisers.
Thousands of residents of the channel island fled to mainland Britain to avoid the incoming Nazis.
On Alderney, the most northerly of the main Chanel Islands, the vast majority of the 1,400 natives left the rock that is just three square miles in size.
Many people evacuated from the larger Guernsey and Jersey but a large portion of the population opted to stay.
The Nazis were unaware the Allied forces had stopped protecting the islands and over the next two weeks began reconnaissance fights over their shores.
In total, 44 islanders were killed in a sequence of raids on the ports by the Luftwaffe.
The Nazis soon occupied the islands, which became the only part of the British Empire conquered by the German Army.
German authorities changed the time zone from GMT to CET in line with the rest of the Third Reich.
German occupation also saw the island change to driving on the right hand side of the road.
Residents were forced to sell their cars and houses; speak German in schools; give up weapons, boats and cameras; and had limited access to beaches.
Hitler believed the occupation of the islands had value as a propaganda tool. As a result, they became heavily fortified.
Hitler sent one-twelfth of the steel and concrete used in the Atlantic Wall defence network to go to the Channel Islands.
The islands were some of the most densely fortified areas in Europe, with a host of Hohlgangsanlage tunnels, casemates, and coastal artillery positions.
Forced labour camps were built on some of the islands, with so-called volunteer camps springing up on Guernsey and Jersey.
This forced labour led to the creation of bunkers, gun emplacements, air raid shelters, and concrete fortifications.
In 1942, camps on Alderney, called Sylt and Norderney, were built to hold a few hundred forced labourers.
However, a year later, on March 1, 1943, they were placed under the control of the SS-Untersturmführer Maximillian List, turning them into concentration camps.
He was succeeded by SS-Obersturmführer Georg Braun in March 1944. Both men were long-serving members of the Nazi party. List ordered the 'security to treat the prisoners harshly' and Braun was 'brutal to excess', according to archive information.
The labourers were forced to build coastal defences as part of Hitler's 'Atlantic Wall' and it is thought 20 per cent of the camp's population died in the first four months alone.
Sylt concentration camp was closed in 1944 and the SS destroyed much of it to hide their crimes.
During D-Day on June 6, 1944 the British troops bypassed the heavily armoured islands.
It took until May 9 1945 for the Nazis on the islands to surrender, 24 hours after VE day for most of Europe.
Guernsey and Jersey were liberated by British troops and ships on this day. Sark was liberated on 10 May 1945, and the German troops in Alderney surrendered on 16 May 1945. Prisoners of war were removed from Alderney by 20 May 1945.
Alderney was the last German garrison to surrender following the conclusion of the war.
