‘The Holocaust Happened on British Soil’: Inquiry into Nazi Camps Creates Bitter Divide on Alderney

THE OBSERVER: An official investigation of claims that many more people than previously thought died during Nazi control of the Channel Island has pleased some, but dismayed others

Michael James at a spot where the bodies of labourers are thought to have been dumped during the war. Photograph: Mark Townsend/The Observer
Their foreboding entrance smothered in ivy, the tunnels gouged out of sheer rock beside Water Lane on the island of Alderney have long terrified generations of the island’s children.

For decades, though, it seemed that was as far as the notoriety of the dank tunnels on the outskirts of St Anne, the capital of the tiny Channel Island, would extend.

That is about to change. An official government inquiry into the full horrors of the Nazi occupation on Alderney, revealed last month by the Observer, has vowed to investigate all new evidence of atrocities, including the grisly Water Lane tunnels where, it is claimed, huge numbers of slave labourers died in their making. » | Mark Townsend | Sunday, August 13, 2023

Channel Island Nazis Inquiry Under Pressure to Find Out Why Perpetrators Never Faced Justice

THE OBSERVER: Thousands of people may have perished on Alderney during the second world war but their murderers never stood trial

Alderney was the only Channel Island to be evacuated during the second world war as the island became part of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall defence. Photograph: No Credit
The official inquiry into Nazi atrocities committed on Alderney in the Channel Islands is under pressure to investigate why those responsible for committing war crimes on British soil were never brought to trial in the UK.

Prof Anthony Glees, the security and intelligence expert who advised Margaret Thatcher’s war crimes inquiry, told the Observer: “This is a vital opportunity to establish all the facts, and it must examine why those who perpetrated such heinous war crimes were never brought to trial in this country. The review into the atrocities on Alderney is to be warmly welcomed, but I believe it should not just focus on the numbers killed, as important as that is.”

Last week the Observer revealed that the UK’s Holocaust envoy, Lord Pickles, would be launching an inquiry into the number of prisoners murdered by the Nazis in the British crown dependency. But Glees said the investigation needed to delve more widely into the events on the Channel Island to uncover the truth about one of the darkest episodes of British history. He added that the events on Alderney had been excluded from his inquiry in 1989. » | Antony Barnett and Martin Bright | Saturday, July 29, 2023

When Hitler Invaded Britain in WWII: The Secrets of Guernsey | Timeline

Dec 12, 2019 • Guernsey and its neighbouring islands have a unique distinction which sets them apart from the rest of the British Isles. Together with the rest of the Channel Islands, they were the only part of the British Isles to fall to Nazi Germany in the Second World War. In this documentary, Dan Snow discovers the unique wartime experience of these islands and the people who lived on them. From a daring commando raid on Sark to an extraordinary reconnoitre of untouched World War Two archaeology submerged in an Alderney quarry, join Dan as he explores the wartime history - above and below the ground.

WIKIPEDIA: Channel Islands.