Discourse and Defiance Under Nazi Occupation: Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1940-1945 (29 page)

It would seem that this planned deportation was an ill-kept secret, because the rumor spread very quickly to anyone with connections to the States. Winifred Harvey heard of the threat through Mr. Dorey—although in the version she received, a thousand men were to be impressed into forced labor and sent off the Island.
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At the same time, a counter-rumor emerged to give a positive spin in the opposite direction. Ord reported that in this version, it was the Royal Navy that was planning to come on the weekend to ferry away men of military age. These men should be prepared to go on the given signal! Ord considered it “a pity that there should be such gullible folk—and not only among the ill-educated either!” Throughout the rest of September 1941, the deportation rumor stayed the primary topic of conversation, and the newspapers were opened anxiously each morning in anticipation of the worst. Even Ord, who believed that many of these rumors came from the Germans, admitted to feeling
the anxiety. Perhaps it was not “alarmist” to heed some of the most sensible members of the community who were saying, “No smoke without fire.”
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The combination of a rumor that just would not go away, and occupiers who were always unpredictable served to heighten the suspense. It was only in October that the deportation rumor died. Ken Lewis got wind of this possible change of fortune early on, because of his position in the States. He wrote, “On Monday morning I heard that the question of deporting men may die out altogether and every minute of the day prayers were being offered to God in order that nothing may come of it.”
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Then, exactly one year later—seemingly out of the blue—came the deportation of the English-born from Guernsey. As Ord's neighbor said, “Here it is at last!”—handing him the order published in the
Evening Press.
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Perhaps the deportation would never have happened had it not been for humanitarian efforts by the Red Cross in the late summer of 1942. A proposal to exchange seriously wounded POWs was expanded by the Swiss to include Channel Islanders who might need to go to England. Unfortunately, this proposal, made for all the best of intentions, brought to Hitler's attention that his order of 1941 had not been carried out.
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For that reason, the deportation of 1942 was both anticipated and abrupt. It actually was a plan long postponed, but existed for the Islanders as a series of apparently unfounded rumors. When distressing rumors occasionally proved true even after a long delay, it is little wonder that Islanders were left not knowing what to believe and what to dismiss.

Research on rumor, much of which started immediately after World War II because of the astonishing number of rumors during that conflict, emphasizes its spontaneous rather than strategic nature.
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The truth that, as Jean-Noel Kapferer maintains, the “public is the main actor” when it comes to rumor transmission has sometimes been sheltered by attempts to give rumor more weight and importance. When defeatist rumors cropped up in the United States during the war, the government attempted to counter them with a propaganda campaign attributing such rumors to the “fifth column,” the enemy within. These murky confederates of the Axis were supposedly listening in at the grocery store or the street corner for any rumors that would reveal military plans. They also were portrayed as the source of any negative rumors about conduct of the war, supposedly sending these rumors around to damage morale.
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Believing there to be a dark force behind the transmission of rumor might make those taken in by an absurd tale feel better and, at least in theory, could aid in squelching destructive or morale-damaging stories. Yet it is the average person hearing a rumor who has the power to pass it on or to allow it to die unreplicated. The decision to speed a rumor on its rounds through a population tells us quite a bit about the psychology of a people in a given situation. As Hans-Joachim Neubauer puts it, a rumor is “a mirror in which society catches sight of its hidden self.”
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Rosnow provides an oft-repeated metaphor for his view of rumor transmission. He likens rumor-mongering to loading and firing a gun, with the gun being the public audience for the rumor, and the bullet being the rumor. Rosnow believes the gun to be loaded in situations where there is anxiety and uncertainty, and the gun fired (the rumor spread) when “the bullet will hit the mark,” that is, when the rumor will be viewed as credible.
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Ord seemed in tune with this notion of a hidden psychological purpose to rumors, believing that they may help “some mercurial spirits over times of depression,” and therefore even the most far-fetched positive stories could be “patriotic and helpful.” Still he was wary of the impact of negative tales.
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This rough division between positive and negative rumors has been studied as the difference between “wish rumors,” those predicting consequences desired by the rumor public,
and “dread rumors,” those that speak of consequences to be feared.
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Even a brief examination of Guernsey Occupation rumors uncovers this same rough division.

When it comes to wish rumors, almost all tended in the direction of imminent release from Occupation. This theme of rescue confirms James Scott's observation that all subjugated groups read into rumors “promises of their imminent liberation” from their position of powerlessness.
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The world
will
turn upside down, and the last shall be first. Some of the wish rumors of the Occupation involved positive (if unlikely) war news. In July 1941, Ord reported that the rumors were flying “thick and fast,” including the British invading France “any time now.”
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This liberation-any-day-now rumor never died, and the Pollyannas of the populace had ample time to embroider on the tale.

The problem with wish rumors and relying upon them for a shot of hope was the speed at which they could be deflated. As Dorothy Higgs put it in September 1942, “The place is full of lovely rumours again. When they fly around, we feel on top of the world but it is an awful flop when they fizzle out!”
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At that point, prior to the tremendous blow of the English deportation, the rumor was that the Germans would hightail it off the Islands in advance of an invasion. The advantage to this version of the liberation myth was that its scenario promised freedom without the military engagement that could destroy Guernsey.

Dread rumors also followed predictable courses during the Occupation, generally clustering around the fear of further deportations or of a German invasion of mainland Britain. In light of the deportations, first of the English and then the announcement of the plan to deport ex-officers, it was not surprising that Jack Sauvary and others believed a rumor that all Freemasons would also be sent to Germany. As Jack wrote, “That will mean my turn next.”
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This rumor was not unreasonable considering that the Germans had banned Freemason and Oddfellows meetings in 1941 and seized their property.
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And this is the way that dread rumors tend to operate: the person paying heed to the rumor and passing it on often falls into the category that will be negatively affected should the rumor prove true. This was Rosnow's point when he described “outcome-relevant involvement” as one condition of rumor transmission.
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When Winifred Harvey was on a brief visit to Sark in 1942, the rumor at the Dixcart Hotel was that fifteen hundred men from Jersey, a thousand men from Guernsey, and a hundred from Sark were to be deported to work on the Continent. This particular dread rumor was given weight by the co-rumor that multiple gun emplacements were to be built in Sark, turning that tiny and quaint island into a virtual weapon itself. One evening, in promoting the veracity of this rumor, a Miss Duckitt told them that she had been to see the German commandant about an unrelated matter and, while there, saw that he had a map of Sark unrolled on his desk. As she talked to him, she looked over his shoulder at the map and could see red crosses at various points on the map. Realizing that she was studying his map, the commandant shouted, “Dat is not for you to look at!” and he abruptly rolled up the map and stuffed it into a drawer.
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Now, this little story of Miss Duckitt, told on a dark evening at a quiet hotel, when the travelers had been temporarily stranded in Sark and refused passage back to Guernsey, illustrates an alternative view of rumor and its transmission. Bernard Guerin and Yoshihiko Miyazaki associate the passing of rumor not with anxiety reduction or the rumor's sense-making properties, but with the social spotlight it provides for the speaker. The relating of rumor and gossip—much like jokes, stories, and urban legends—is a form of entertainment, exciting to tell and enjoyable to hear. Even in the case of dread rumors, which tend to heighten
our level of anxiety, there is some psychological amusement in contemplating the worst that could happen. Rather like hearing a ghost or horror story, the considering of a worst-case scenario gives a chill up the back that has a peculiar aspect of pleasure to it, but only when the threat is a remote possibility and not an inevitable fact. For the teller, being first to relate a rumor has “conversational cash value,” guaranteeing a place at the center of attention.
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This desire to be first with the engaging story works against any reasonable attempts to verify the truth underlying rumor or gossip, and means that the embroidering of the tale (to make it more thrilling) is increased.

The very traits that Rosnow identifies as key to rumor transmission (anxiety, uncertainty, personal importance, and credulity) are precisely what makes a story “interesting and attention-grabbing.”
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It is also possible to sense a different approach to rumor by those diarists with more of the raconteur about them. So, Jack Sauvary, Bill Warry, Bert Williams, Dorothy Higgs, and Kitty Bachmann seem more interested in rumors and the chit-chat that made up the informal communication links of the Island. “Chewing the fat” with others seemed to be part of their personality and social makeup. Some, such as Elizabeth Doig and Arthur Mauger, were in such a poor position to differentiate rumor from fact that these stories were more of a source of anxiety. And for those more in the know (by position, education, or nature), rumors were interesting as a phenomenon, but ready belief in them was viewed as the product of a subpar mentality or a lack of solid information. Thus, Reverend Ord, Ambrose Robin, Winnie Harvey, and (making allowance for his age) even Ken Lewis wrote often about the rumors of the day, but generally looked askance at them, gauging such stories against the more solid information to which they were privy.

Although a rumor may appear uncontrolled, it is clear that during its transmission “the process of embellishment and exaggeration is not at all random.” It expands and contracts as it moves from person to person, adding and deleting details to bring it more in line with the underlying worldview of the tellers.
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For example, one of the more amusing and popular rumors was that “a very big personage” was visiting the Island. Based on such evidence as the doubling of sentries at the Royal Hotel (and conveyed, at least to Winnie, by “Dora-at-the-Royal,” who said that the staff had to prepare a special luncheon), this unknown high-ranking Nazi was first considered to be next to Goering, maybe even Goering himself.
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By the next year, the same rumor was circulating of an important, secret visitor to the Island. Some were saying that it was actually Hitler (!) and based the importance of the supposed guest on armed sentries, an unusual number of airplanes (supposedly an escort for the great man), and the foul tempers and frayed nerves (again, according to insider Dora-at-the-Royal) of the German command. By then—with actual news of Rudolph Hess's flight to England circulating—it was put forward that the visitor of the previous year was actually Hess.
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In this rumor as it morphed over a year's time, it is possible to see the sense-making function of rumor (Oh, it must have been Hess getting as close to England as possible to plan his later flight…) and the underlying need this rumor expresses of viewing Guernsey as an important player, on some level, in the war.

In addition to what they tell us about the mindset of those passing and receiving them, rumors perform distinct functions in the hidden transcript. First, rumors provide a means to convey interpersonal trust and the assurance of shared interests and goals. Beneath their chatty, friendly narrative of the latest news, however bogus, lies an unspoken test of commonality. Kitty Bachmann provides an insight into this role of rumor in her perceptive description of everyday talk:

So we live from day to day. We see friends and exchange rumours grave and comical, credible and bizarre. We seldom reveal our innermost thoughts, but we know just as surely as though exchanged by word of mouth that the next person's feelings are identical with our own, thought for thought. What a mess we are in! How will it end? And the inaudible cry goes up: “How long?”
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In addition to its role in solidarity and a subtle feeling out of others, rumor has a practical value as a warning device. A story circulated early in the Occupation, when new orders and restrictions were almost a daily matter, was that an unnamed girl had been electrocuted when she went near one of the local bays. “Serves her right, if it is true,” was Winifred Harvey's response. “We have been warned.”
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