World War II
World War II
Life in Occupied Guernsey: The Diaries of Ruth Ozanne 1940-1945
The diaries of Ruth Ozanne give us a remarkable eyewitness account of daily life during the German occupation of Guernsey from 1940 to 1945. At the beginning of the occupation, there is an atmosphere of good-humoured defiance on the Island. Life gradually darkens, however, as vastly more arms and troops arrive, luxuries quickly disappear and severe food shortages make the struggle to survive considerably tougher. Towards the end, both the Islanders and the occupying army are starving. Through it all, Ruth meticulously records the rumours, the rations, the scandals, the trials and the tribulations of life under the Nazis as she and her friend and housekeeper Florence battle to care for their home, their elderly relatives and 'gallant' Garry - Ruth's Highland Terrier. She writes with a dry wit and her diaries are testament to the resilience, resourcefulness and humanity of Guernsey people during the Second World War.
RUTH OZANNE was born in 1888 and died in 1970. For most of her life she lived in St Peter Port in Guernsey. She was a lifelong diary writer. Her first diary was written at the age of thirteen and her final diary was completed at the end of the Second World War. In between, she wrote sixteen volumes, including five volumes recounting her experiences during the First World War. After her death, the diaries passed to relatives but remained unread until they were discovered in an attic in Edinburgh in 2009.
Outpost of Occupation: The Nazi Occupation of the Channel Islands 1940-45 by Barry Turner
Once Britain demilitarised the idyllic, unspoilt Channel Islands in 1940, their fate was sealed: the Germans invaded. In this fascinating account of the German occupation of the Channel Islands during World War Two, Barry Turner paints a vivid picture of what life could have been like for the rest of the country should Hitler's plan have been successful. This extremely readable and fair-minded account shows not only the extreme hardships suffered by the Channel Islanders, but also their resolve.
"... draws on much original research and provides a gripping and eminently fair account of the Occupation, enabling the reader to make intriguing comparisons with events during the occupation of Jersey, which are not perhaps well-known in Guernsey. This history sets out to rebut the legacy of suspicion and recrimination which continues to exist in some quarters, and succeeds, convincingly in doing so." Book Review, Review of the Guernsey Society, Summer 2011.
The Channel Islands at War DVD
Controversial three-part documentary first shown on Yesterday channel, this DVD, narrated by Bergerac's John Nettles, interviews islanders caught in the islands during the Occupation. It has caused much controversy in the islands due to its coverage of the treatment of Jews and the alleged collaboration of islanders with the Nazi occupying forces.
Torteval School in Exile by Nick Le Poidevin
The story of a Guernsey school evacuated shortly before the German Occupation and its establishment at Alderley Edge near Manchester. This is Nick Le Poidevin's account of this period, based on the Log Book kept by his father, as headmaster of the exiled school.
"It is a record, not only of the day-to-day running of Torteval School, ending in its eventual integration into the local system, but also of the recurrent needs of the Guernsey children throughout the period of separation from their parents." Book Review, Review of the Guernsey Society, Summer 2010.
Displaced Donkeys: A Guernsey Family's War by Suzanne Lang
The evacuation of Guernsey in late June 1940 impacted on every family on that peaceful rural island. Parents had only 24 hours to decide whether or not to send their children to Britain with their schools and teachers. Mothers with children under school age had to decide whether to flee Guernsey to Britain with their children, whilst men of military age had to decide whether to enlist in the British forces, or to remain on Guernsey to protect their homes and livelihoods under the coming Nazi Occupation. As numerous families were torn apart, the stresses of war affected relationships between husband and wife and between parents and children. Many of the mothers who left Guernsey for towns in the North-West of England had little money and few possessions, and struggled to care for their children, both materially and emotionally. They also had to cope with the unfamiliar surroundings of industrial towns that were so very different to their rural island home.
Suzanne's book tells the story of one such Guernsey family. It details their highs and their lows, and shows how they coped in the unfamiliar surroundings of Glasgow and Stockport in the 1940s. As Dolly states, 'It's this bloody war Cliff, it's changed people's lives... It wasn't of our making but we've had to live through it and survive as best we could.'
Guernsey under Occupation: The Diaries of Violet Carey edited by Alice Evans
"Unique and unparalleled insight into the impact of the German invasion on the people of Guernsey".
The diaries kept by Violet Carey during the occupation of Guernsey show precisely how the German invasion affected the lifestyle of an upper middle class woman. Whilst never indulging in self-pity, she captures the misery caused by imprisonment and the lethargy and depression that many, including herself, suffered. What comes through most vividly is a valiant acceptance on the part of the islanders of their circumstances, together with optimism that all would turn out well. The diaries also indicate the pressures experienced by the island's leaders as the writer is related to Bailiff Victor Carey and husband is Jurat of the Royal Court. An introductory section examines the language and content of the diaries and shows how, as the occupation lengthened and shortages became more acute, the veneer of civilisation could be stripped away and the privileges afforded by wealth, education and class rendered irrelevant.
A Fair and Honest Book by Ambrose Sherwill
The memoirs of Sir Ambrose Sherwill, President of the Controlling Committee of the States of Guernsey during the German Occupation and Bailiff of Guernsey 1946 - 1960.
The title of the book comes from a diary entry dated 13th November, 1940, “I think when I am really settled in, I will write a book on the German Occupation of the Bailiwick of Guernsey. Not a thriller but a fair and honest book...”. He resumed writing his memoirs after his retirement in 1960, but died before they were published. The manuscripts have been made available to other authors and researchers, but have not appeared in print until now.
The result of eight years' research into the effects of the evacuation and occupation during World War II on the islands' schoolchildren.
"... little has appeared in print about the island's schoolchildren; either about those who, at painfully short notice, were so trustingly placed in the care of their teachers and sent off to the UK, or ... of those who remained behind and spent five years under alien rule. Sixty eight years on, Dr Corral Smith has made a valuable effort to help fill this gap."
Review of the Guernsey Society, Winter 2008
Mined Where You Walk: The German Occupation of Sark, 1940-45 by Richard Le Tissier
The first proper record of the five years of Occupation in Sark; a follow-up to the author's Island Destiny, published in 2006.
Following the success of his moving account, in Island Destiny, of the lives of Werner and Phyllis Rang, Richard Le Tissier has now delved even more deeply into Sark's wartime occupation to produce a detailed and highly readable account of this traumatic period in the island's history.
Review of the Guernsey Society, Summer 2008
The Changing Face of the Channel Islands Occupation: Record, Memory and Myth by Hazel Knowles Smith
This independent study has already attracted controversy. Containing much fresh evidence, it vividly portrays the Islanders' day-to-day Occupation experiences, whilst exploring - and often refuting - what are today becoming received ideas of a mostly 'shameful' wartime past. Aspects discussed include: collaboration; resistance; starvation; the fate of missing forced workers; whether Island Officials knowingly sent three Jewish women to their deaths in Auschwitz; and whether the Islands' experiences were unique, or would simply have charted the course of Hitler's planned invasion of Britain.
Film set in World War II starring Peter Sellers and Charles Aznavour about seven slave labourers who hide in an underground network of tunnels, get sealed in and are not discovered for years. Filmed on location in a German bunker in Guernsey.
A little-known film, with Sellers in a straight role.
Not The Enemy by Damian Cavanagh
German occupied Guernsey, May 1944, just one week before D-Day. One local girl, Rose Le Page, has fallen in love. But her love is forbidden, as she has fallen in love with one of the enemy. Glorious Guernsey, fifty five years later, a young Englishman arrives to train as a helicopter pilot. For William Sweetman it will be the fulfilment of a lifetime ambition. However, for Stella Vogel, a wealthy German businesswoman, her visit to Guernsey is something of a mercy mission, to accompany her ageing father as he pays his respects to his comrades who perished during the German occupation of the island in World War Two. A chance encounter brings William and Stella together into a passionate and thrilling love affair. But their discovery of a disturbing secret from the island's wartime past puts their whole relationship in jeopardy. As preconceptions are shattered they both need to know the truth about what really happened to their families fifty five years ago. Moving between the present and the wartime past, the book explores the dark secrets that families keep and the effects they have when they are revealed generations later.
Izette - The Last Days of Childhood by Viv Packer
Imagine that the Second World War had turned out differently. Imagine there being a swastika hanging from every public building and seeing German soldiers on every street corner. Imagine having to witness the forced deportation of people you care about. To some, this is an nightmare scenario but, for the people of the Channel Islands, such as teenager Izette, it is a stark reality. For Izette's family and friends there is food rationing, fear, illness and murder but there is also defiance, bravery and passion. And there is, too, the tricky problem of having to tread that very thin line between co-operation and collaboration.
Island at War (DVD)
Set during the occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II. The story shows how Island life changed overnight after a German invasion. Islanders were restricted to walking and cycling, town names were changed to German names, clocks were set to continental time, and no society could meet without the permission of German High Command. The focus is on three families, the Dorrs, the Jonases and the Mahys, as they struggle on with day to day life under the restrictive new system.
The British Channel Islands Under German Occupation 1940-45 by Paul Saunders
This book commemorates both a defining period in the history of the islands and an important, but neglected aspect of contemporary British history. The book is the result of an exhaustive collecting effort in archives across Europe, some as far as the former Soviet bloc. It describes and analyses the issues of collaboration, resistance, survival culture and relations between Germans and islanders. In addition it provides a novel approach to the fate of the slave and forced workers brought to the islands to work on the fortifications. For the first time, this book also presents an in-depth account of British post-war policy towards island collaboration and of the divergences of war memory in the Channel Islands and Britain.
A Peculiar Occupation by Peter Tabb
This book offers an entirely different look at the German occupation of the Channel Islands. Intermingled with the incredible story of how a group of islands, proud of their links with the Crown of England but still fiercely independent, even of each other, for almost 1,000 years, faced occupation by the most fearsome force of arms the world has ever seen, are several intriguing, 'what ifs?'.
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In Toni's Footsteps - The Channel Islands Occupation Remembered (DVD)
The film tells the story of the Occupation of the Channel Islands, a small group of islands that were over the course of five years converted into one of the most heavily defended areas in the world.
Amidst all this the film follows the story of one soldier, Toni Kumpel, an ordinary soldier with a story typical of the millions who served in the German Army- his early years in a small rural village, the Hitler Youth and eventually conscription. Posted to the islands and then to Russia, Toni's story is an example of the futility and random nature of war.
The German Occupation of the Channel Islands by Charles Cruickshank
The official history of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands. Commissioned by the Governments of the Bailiwicks of Guernsey and Jersey, this was the first book written with full access to British and German government archives. First published in 1975, this edition is a 2004 reprint.
Living with the Enemy by Roy McLoughlin
Bestselling account of what it was like for those islanders who spent the war in the Channel Islands during the German Occupation.
The Model Occupation: The Channel Islands Under German Rule, 1940-45 by Madelaine Bunting
An account of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands written by a Guardian journalist looking for a sensationalist angle on the most painful chapter in the islands' modern history.
Channel Islands: Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark (Battleground Europe) by George Forty
An account of the Occupation by a renowned military historian which examines the events 1940-45, the conditions for those who remained and the fortifications the Germans left behind pictured then-and-now.
Channel Islands at War: A German Perspective by George Forty
Account of the Occupation of the Channel Islands from the German perspective.
Novel (published Nov 2004) set during the WW2 German Occupation of the Channel Islands.
Occupational Nurse: Nursing in Guernsey 1940-45 by Peter & Mary Birchenall
This book records the unique achievement of a group of mostly untrained young nurses who, under extremely difficult circumstances, provided health care at the Channel Island of Guernsey?s only hospital during the German occupation of 1940-45. An inspiring story of courage and fortitude and a very worthwhile piece of wartime history, compiled by two senior nursing educationalists from interviews with the nurses concerned.
Channel Islands Occupied (VHS)
A video about the German Occupation of the Channel Islands during World War II. Includes rare film footage of the German occupation of the Channel Islands, as well as a look at the German fortifications, gun-emplacements and the only concentration camp ever to be built on British soil.
Guernsey under German Rule by Ralph Durand
(The Guernsey Society, London 1946)
"... The Society is publishing a book by Mr Ralph Durand entitled Guernsey Under German Rule. The Hon Secretary, who has read the manuscript, strongly recommends it to the notice of members... The book was written in response to a request made by the Bailiff in the early days of the German occupation. Mr Durand describes many aspects of the occupation in a most interesting way, and, though not free of criticism, he seems to have maintained a very fair balance in his judgement of events". Bulletin of the Guernsey Society, January 1946.
For more details see Preface & Table of Contents.
Reflections of Guernsey by Molly Bihet
Further memories of Guernsey's War and Freedom through the years 1940 to 1993 from the author of "A Child's War".
Novel set in German-occupied Channel Islands during WW2.