This quiet British island was once the scene of Nazi atrocities. New investigation reveals its truths

Alderney, a quiet British Channel island known for its exceptional natural beauty, was once the site of the only Nazi camps on British soil – and hell on Earth for its thousands of prisoners.

A new inquiry, ordered by the UK’s special envoy for post-Holocaust issues, Eric Pickles, and led by a panel of experts, sought to determine the exact number of deaths among prisoners and Holocaust workers. Alderney, while putting an end to conspiracy theories. and misinformation around the island.

The results were released Wednesday and determined that there had been a higher number of deaths than initially documented after the liberation, but found no evidence of a “mini-Auschwitz.”

The inquiry also examined why the perpetrators of Nazi crimes – most of whom escaped justice – were never tried in Britain.

Spanning three square miles, the island was occupied by the Nazis for most of World War II. During this period, three forced labor camps and a concentration camp called Lager Sylt were built.

Nearly eight decades later, the marks of Nazi occupation are still visible on this picturesque island, including bunkers, anti-tank walls and the infamous Water Lane tunnels built by the occupying forces to store munitions and fuel.

According to its tourist office, residents of Alderney – which has a population of just over 2,000 – gather once a year in May for a memorial service in memory of the island’s victims.

Described by Pickles as home to the “westernmost concentration camp of the Third Reich”, questions about the scale of the horrors on the island have persisted among locals as well as internationally – and exactly how many of deaths has never been clear, until now. .

The Channel Islands were the only British land occupied by the Germans during World War II. Unlike Jersey and Guernsey – the other islands occupied by the Nazis – Alderney was evacuated of almost all of its inhabitants, meaning the island does not have many wartime records.

According to Pickles, the lack of documentation led to unsubstantiated allegations about Alderney and the war crimes that took place there.

“Allegations of mass murder that elsewhere would have been carefully fact-checked have been accepted at face value,” said Pickles – who stressed the importance of historical accuracy regarding the Holocaust.

“Third- or fourth-hand accounts of atrocities, without any supporting evidence, are presented as fact… What happened at Alderney was bad enough with its brutality, sadism and murder, without that it is necessary to embellish them. »

“An unvarnished truth”

After the island was liberated from the Nazis, official figures from a post-war investigation put the death toll at 389.

This figure has long been disputed. Historians, members of the Jewish community, and the general public have estimates ranging from several hundred to several thousand.

Speculation is also rife that the true scale of what happened on the island may have been deliberately covered up by the British government.

The investigation denies such theories. It was found that the number of deaths in Alderney was unlikely to have exceeded 1,134, with the more likely range of deaths being between 641 and 1,027.

Additionally, at least 97 people died and one went missing during transit to and from the island.

The estimated minimum number of prisoners or workers sent to Alderney throughout the German occupation was between 7,608 and 7,812, the panel found.

The Alderney camps, according to the survey, shared many features with those of continental Europe. Workers were kept in atrocious conditions and forced to work long hours carrying out dangerous construction work. They were beaten, mutilated, tortured and, in some cases, executed.

The investigation revealed that there is “no evidence” to suggest that several thousand victims died.

Claims that Alderney housed an extermination center and constituted a “mini-Auschwitz” are also false, the panel found.

“Prisoners were treated appallingly and life was cheap, but Alderney was not home to a ‘mini-Auschwitz’; there was no extermination center on the island,” Pickles said.

He added: “Anyone who claims this has never visited Auschwitz or understood the extent of the Nazi death factories in Eastern Europe. »

Pickles believes the overestimated death toll at the hands of the Nazis may be damaging and play into the hands of Holocaust deniers.

“As parts of Europe seek to cleanse their history through the Holocaust, the British Isles must tell the unvarnished truth,” he said. “Numbers matter. It is as much a distortion of the Holocaust to exaggerate the death toll as it is to underestimate the numbers. »

He added: “The exaggeration plays into the hands of Holocaust deniers and undermines the six million deaths. The truth can never harm us.

“A blatant injustice”

A separate section of the inquiry focused on the failure to prosecute war crimes committed at Alderney, which it described as a “gross injustice”.

This was due to the British government’s decision to hand the matter over to the Soviet Union after World War II, with the majority of victims being Soviet citizens.

Research by Anthony Glees, an academic and adviser to Pickles, found that there had been a “succession of cover-ups” by the British government, which passed all files of evidence from Alderney to the Soviet Union via the United Nations War. Commission of crimes on September 12, 1945.

From there, the USSR decided to “do nothing with the evidence”, according to Glees, meaning that the majority of perpetrators of crimes who had systematically tortured and, in some cases, murdered their victims, escaped their trial.

Glees believes this was deliberately hidden from the public by the British government. He calls on the government to apologize.

“It seems difficult to understand why Britain, of all countries, has refused to try Nazi war criminals for the appalling atrocities committed on British soil against the citizens of some 30 countries,” he said. declared.

“Instead, the British authorities passed on to the USSR all the evidence they had carefully collected in the so-called ‘Alderney Affair’… although the USSR had not requested it and, thus , apparently in direct contravention of Britain’s international treaty obligations.”

According to Glee, the lack of trials against the Alderney war criminals means justice has been denied to the victims and their families.

Pickles, meanwhile, said the fact that the perpetrators have never faced British justice is a “stain on the reputation of successive British governments”.

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