3 days ago
Nazi guards at horror Channel Islands camp shot prisoners for fun, unearthed testimony reveals
Prisoners on the occupied Channel Islands were shot for fun by their Nazi guards during the Second World War, research has found.
On Sundays, around a dozen inmates at Sylt - one of the two camps the Germans ran on occupied Alderney - would be chosen for the horrifying target practice.
They were taken to a nearby light railway and tied to trucks before being shot in different parts of their body until they died, according to testimony uncovered by a British artist.
The research by Piers Secunda, 49, is the latest evidence of atrocities committed by the Nazis during their occupation of the Channel Islands from 1940 to 1945.
Mr Secunda spoke to the daughters of former Sylt inmate Giorgi Zbovorski, who died in 2006.
He recounted to his children how he had been among prisoners who were forced to watch as SS guards shot at fellow inmates.
Ingrid Zbovorski recalled of her father's experience: 'They would select 12 or 15 of the prisoners.
'They were put upside down, bound to the train wagons. The guards then started shooting at random, for their amusement.
'A bullet in your head or your heart and you were dead. A shot in your arm and in your leg, and you would suffer for hours.'
Mr Secunda's research features in upcoming documentary The Ghosts of Alderney, which is set to air in the UK later this year.
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.
Slave labourers were forced to work in horrific conditions in four camps on Alderney. As well as Sylt, there was Helgoland, Nordeney and Borkum.
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.
A Government report commissioned by Lord Eric Pickles, UK Special Envoy on Post Holocaust Issues, detailed how, 'beatings and torture were recalled by survivors and dead bodies were often to be found in the barracks' at Sylt.
Mr Secunda, whose grandfather fought in the Second World War, spent five years researching the lives of slave labourers sent to Alderney, including speaking with descendants of victims and survivors.
He was then approached by production company Wild Dog to make the Ghosts of Alderney film.
'The findings of the film add another layer of information to our understanding of what happened on Alderney and they confirm yet again the seriousness of the crimes committed there by Germans who were not prosecuted by the British,' he told MailOnline.
Otto Hogelow, the sadistic commander of the SS guards on Alderney, 'incentivised' his subordinates to shoot prisoners, Mr Secunda said.
'I found a copy of Otto Hogelow's Nazi Party application form.
'In it, they question the integrity of his purity of blood, his heritage as an Aryan. So he overcompensates to show his loyalty.
'I believe that incentivising the SS guards to shoot the prisoners by offering them leave was his way of overcompensating.'
Hogelow is also believed to have put glass into the food of prisoners on Alderney.
Zbovorski was taken to Alderney after trying to escape forced labour in Austria.
He was sent to Belgium in 1944 to work on the Nazi V1 rocket project.
He escaped with a friend after persuading a German soldier not to shoot them if they ran into the forest.
Another guard then duly shot three of the group they were part of.
By the time Belgium was liberated by the Allies, Zbovorski weighed little more than six stone.
Mr Secunda added: 'People are names on lists until you unfold their history.
'The purpose of the research is to unfold the personal stories of the prisoners and make them human again.'
After the Germans surrendered Alderney on May 16, 1945, it was another six months before any of the islanders could return due to the heavy fortifications placed around it.
Allied forces found in excess of 30,000 landmines that had to be painstakingly defused and removed in order for residents to return to their homes.
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.
