The Jews of the Channel Islands
The Occupation
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It was 10.30 in the morning on Sunday 30 June 1940 when a German aircraft flew low over Guernsey airport, it circled and landed. Clutching a revolver, the pilot walked cautiously into the deserted administration building.
The absence of people unnerved him, suddenly a British aircraft roared overhead and he ran out back to his plane, leaving his revolver on a table. In the afternoon another German aircraft landed, this time three officers walked across the tarmac. One of them reclaimed the revolver, whilst another approached a policeman and in perfect English asked him to fetch the island officials. The Nazi occupation of part of the British Isles had begun.
In Jersey the arrival of the invader was equally un-dramatic. Just a fortnight earlier Whitehall had ordered the Channel Islands to be demilitarised and had carried out elaborate voluntary evacuation plans. The majority of established Jews resident in Jersey left the island before June 1940.
An incomplete list of many of those who had left the island was compiled by Clifford Orange the Chief Aliens Officer and sent to the German authorities on 6 January 1942.
The Passport Office lists show that many members of the families named by Orange renewed their passports in the months leading up to the Occupation. The last to do so was Rose Rachel Feldman who obtained her new passport on 15 June 1940. The passport office closed on 27 June 1940.
It was not considered wise to tell the Germans of this decision in case it should be taken as an invitation to march in immediately. Only after a German air attack had killed 38 civilians was the news broadcast that all British forces had left the Channel Islands.
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Aware of the iminent arrival of the Nazis, the majority of the Jewish population had already escaped to the British mainland. Only a small number of Jews were left behind. As a result, twelve registered on Jersey, and four on Guernsey.
Among the first things the German conquerors did was to hasten to the telephone exchange and disconnect the lines to England.
The island newspapers were issued free, their front pages carrying proclamations from the Commandant ordering a curfew between 2300 hours and 0600 hours, the handing-in of weapons, and the surrender of soldiers on leave, the suspension of sales of spirits and petrol and forbidding the use of boats without permits.
German soldiers were now marching into the two capitals St Helier and St Peter Port heartily singing the Horst Wessel song, while the islanders watched silently and sadly.
On Sark, feudalism’s last outpost, the Dame Sybil Hathaway, received two officers at the Seigneurie with calm courtesy, making sure they had to walk the whole length of a large room to meet her. One said, “You are not afraid?” to which Mrs Hathaway answered in her excellent German, “Is there any need to be afraid of German officers?”
Not all fared as well as Mrs Hathaway, for the Jews of the Channel Islands things were going from bad to worse.
Persecution of the Jews begins
Read the full article here: http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/nazioccupation/channelislands.html
The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
www.HolocaustResearchProejct.org
Copyright Carmelo Lisciotto H.E.A.R.T 2009
