It is time to expose the true horrors of the Nazi concentration camp on British soil

Nearly everything about the tiny Channel Island of Alderney feels terribly British. Its 2,000 or so inhabitants drive on the left, drink British beer, speak English, live in houses that look as if they were made in Devon, and purchases are made with pounds and pence. There are small differences – such as a 35mph speed limit, and a blue telephone box – but by and large, despite being technically a British crown dependency and therefore not a part of the United Kingdom, Alderney is as British as fish and chips.

However, there is a part of Alderney that is emphatically not British, and that is its wartime history. For unlike Britain, Alderney, along with the rest of the Channel Islands, was invaded by the Nazis. But while the populations of Guernsey and Jersey were to endure five long years of occupation, all but a very small handful of Alderney’s inhabitants were evacuated before the Germans landed. As a result, the invaders had a free hand to do what they liked, and as was their wont when left to their own devices, the Nazis established at least four slave labour camps on the island – one of which, Lager Sylt, was a concentration camp run by the SS.

Overseen by an SS officer called Maximilian List, prisoners at Sylt were subjected to the most appalling tortures and punishments, and many were worked to death. While conditions were similarly despicable at the other camps, it is chilling – and often overlooked – that Alderney was the home of the only SS concentration camp on what is de facto British soil.

open image in gallery

After the war, a British investigation declared that just under 400 prisoners had been killed, eight of whom were Jews. However, there are many who believe this figure is way too low, and minimises the extent to which the Holocaust took place on this very British island.

As a result, what exactly happened on Alderney during those dark years is currently the subject of intense historical debate, which feels more like an almighty scrap that has pitched historians against historians, historians against islanders, and islanders against islanders.

In order to settle the matter, Lord (Eric) Pickles, the United Kingdom’s special envoy on post-Holocaust issues, has ordered an inquiry into the atrocities, and is currently assembling a panel of experts to delve deeply into the historical records, and to be allowed access to any hitherto secret documents.

open image in gallery

“It will be an academic peer review of the numbers of prisoners murdered by the Nazis by brutality, neglect, work or judicial process,” the peer tweeted over the weekend. “No human remains will be disturbed. The review will be open, transparent and conducted in the spirit of consensus. I have not ‘ordered’ anyone to do anything, nor will I.”

So what evidence is the panel likely to hear concerning the number of deaths that took place on Alderney – which the prisoners called the “arsehole of the world”?

The panel is likely to hear from Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls of Staffordshire University, who has recently published a book and made a TV documentary on Alderney. Sturdy Colls believes the true number of dead lying on Alderney is just over 900, which is of course more than double that declared by the official post-war investigation.

However, this figure is considered far too low by Marcus Roberts, the director of JTrails, the National Anglo-Jewish Heritage Trail. “We have consistent reports from multiple British intelligence and witness sources that Jews were the majority labour force on the island,” says Roberts. “Over the occupation, some 6,000 to 9,000 Jews would probably have passed through the camps – and with an average 83 per cent death rate, then it is quite possible that around 5,000 Jews are likely to have perished on Alderney.”

Some islanders agree with Roberts. They include Michael James, an art dealer who was raised on the island, and spends his time between Alderney and Florida. “For too long it all felt brushed under the carpet,” he says. “I think the real locals – the natives, as they like to be known – all want to know the truth. How many really died on our island? The figure of around 400 just seems far too low.”

open image in gallery

It would be fair to say that James’s opinion is not universally held by his fellow islanders. Among those disagreeing is Trevor Davenport, the president of the Alderney Society, which seeks to conserve historical and natural sites on the island, and who strongly disputes the extent to which the Holocaust took place on Alderney.

“I have been looking at this for 30 to 40 years, and the amount of shit that is coming out is coming out by the cartload,” he tells me. “It’s the same old tripe repeated and repeated. We’re not trying to cover anything up. When you look at the story of World War Two, we’re nothing but a full stop. These people are attention seekers trying to make a name for themselves.”

When I visited the island last August, I would estimate – through nothing more than an educated hunch – that the majority of islanders would side with Mr Davenport, not least because there is a fear that Alderney could be turned into some sort of ghoulish “Holocaust theme park”.

This reluctance to embrace the past has been labelled a “taboo heritage”, by Dr Gilly Carr, associate professor in archaeology at Cambridge University, and who has previously worked with Lord Pickles and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance to investigate how Alderney should memorialise the war years.

open image in gallery

“Taboo heritage can become heritage in the end if it receives political support, but this usually takes a lot of time and investment by stakeholders,” Dr Carr recently told Index on Censorship.

Whatever the number of those who died – and it is surely vital that it is established as definitively as possible – it is clear that bad things happened on Alderney. On many buildings there are names and wartime dates scratched into the concrete. The gates of Sylt concentration camp still stand near the airport, memorialised by a small plaque. A wall in a building yard is peppered with bullet holes – a sign some say of an execution wall, while others say it was a shooting range.

At the Alderney Museum, I was even shown the distinctive striped uniform of a concentration camp inmate that was found in an islander’s home in the 1990s beneath some floorboards. To look at it is to gaze directly at the product of evil. It is unsettling to realise it was found on British soil – it really did happen here.