The Channel Islands At War (26 page)

Nowhere were the risks of escaping more obvious than on Alderney itself and Wernegau and Prokop describe a particularly horrifying example of a failed escape leading to death in the summer of 1943 in broad daylight in the middle of St Anne. Their account was confirmed after the war by a corporal working in the ration office in New Street. The victim was Willy Ebert, a trustee or kapo, who had escaped and got as far as St Anne Church then in use as a store. 'A kapo climbed onto the roof, smashed a window and opened the door, the SS men entered the Church and Ebert was led out. They beat him with iron bars, but still he tried to run away ... He ran through the graveyard towards New Street, but before he reached the street the SS fired and hit him three times." Finally, he was dispatched with a shot in the head in spite of appealing to a passing German officer.

Part 5

Occupation Life for Ordinary People

War Crimes: Billeting, Looting and Destruction of Goods and Property

Collaborators and re
sisters made up only a few hundred of the population. For the majority of the people daily issues were of a different kind. Their everyday lives were the subject of some of Morrison's wilder remarks and inaccurate comparisons when he reported to the cabinet after his liberation visit that: on the whole the situation at least in Jersey and Guernsey was reassuring, and while of course, the Germans have left behind them a good deal of damage which will have to be put right and the economy of the Islands has been dislocated, the problem of their rehabilitation should be less difficult than was to have been expected. Certainly, as far as material damage, the Channel Islands have suffered nothing that compares with the damage due to enemy air raids in this country, while the health of the population docs not seem to have been seriously impaired.'

Yet even his report contained evidence of a different state of affairs. Morrison admitted that 'nobody who has not lived under the Nazis' can fully understand what occupation meant. Writing to Sibyl Hathaway, Morrison referred to 'the trials and privations of the long period of enemy occupation". In one passage in his report he said that, 'The Germans left many of the premises they occupied in a disgracefully filthy condition." This coincided much more with what eyewitnesses said in 1945. One has a harrowing description of evacuees, internees, and servicemen returning to the Islands finding 'on arrival that their homes had completely disappeared; others that while the almost unrecognisable shell of their premises remained, their household goods and effects had completely vanished.'

For many people there was only temporary accommodation, and compensation was by no means paid in all cases. House rents, living costs and taxation had all risen, and many of those returning had lost five years income and savings. Hathaway's daughter Amice returned to her Guernsey home to find: 'All the furniture had been completely wrecked; the drawers of chests and tallboys taken away, and nothing but the frames left. Her silver, which was hidden in the roof, had been discovered and stolen. Fortunately her baby Austin car had been concealed in a haystack by her faithful cowman, but it was a sorry sight." They sat down on a packing-case to view the damage, and Amice turned to her mother to remark that all the Germans seemed to have left was the sun-bl
inds. She went over to pull one
down in the drawing-room and found it decorated with swastikas surrounding pornographic drawings. The Hathaways were able to spend Christmas 1945 in the Boston Ritz while other Islanders struggled to recover from five years plunder of everything in their daily lives.

Economic difficulties began with evacuation. Banks limited withdrawals to £25, and people could not take more than a suitcase or two with them. Savings, securities, homes of a lifetime, treasured and valuable possessions had to be left to the whim of the conqueror. Sometimes neighbours helped by receiving valuables, or taking over the running of shops and other businesses, but in many cases there was no time, and as the ships steamed towards Britain they left behind thousands of fully furnished homes, hundreds of well-stocked hotels and businesses, pubs full of beer, and garages full of petrol. 'One has to be very brave to turn the key in the lock of a home one has had for life and flee at a moment's notice', wrote an Islander.

One of the first tasks for the Island governments was to assume responsibility for this property. In Jersey, the superior council issued orders on 22 and 27 June 1940. Household furniture and effects were to be collected and stored, and arrangements made to collect and dispose of perishable goods. Goods in store were to be retained for 40 days after the return of their owners to the Islands. Land and livestock were in effect nationalized for the duration, although farmers received no compensation for their loss. Special arrangements were made to transfer livestock, agricultural machinery, and petrol from deserted Alderney, although here too no compensation was paid. Sadly, the Island governments proved unable to protect their citizens' property. In October 1943. an eyewitness who lived opposite Lovell's storehouse in St Peter Port commented that: 'The Germans never stopped taking the furniture away in vans from the store to the White Rock where they have special sheds and packers for shipping to Germany. What they are taking mostly belongs to those who left for England, who had stored it for safety or so they thought.'

Island governments were under severe and constantly mounting financial pressure, but they did do something to mitigate the difficulties resulting from the breakdown of legal and financial contact with Britain. They shouldered the payment of pensions payable by the British government. After liberation, the states voted to pay pensions and half wages to all returning civil servants, a privilege which extended to only a few other Islanders in the employ of richer firms like the banks. Otherwise those who were evacuated lost five years wages.

Island governments also agreed that people should file claims for damage to their property for treatment after the war. This often meant property remained in disrepair or near ruin for the rest of the war. Writing in October 1944 an Island official said these claims, 'will have to cover not only damage by bombs, but also damage to property, both movable and immovable, which has been in the possession of the German forces and their auxiliaries. The number of dwelling houses and business premises thus occupied exceed three thousand [in Guernsey alone]. In a considerable number of cases houses we
re completely demolished, while
the erection of fortifications... has rendered useless hundreds of verges of pastures and arable land.'

Ten per cent in Jersey and 12½
per cent in Guernsey of agricultural land was wasted by the Germans. The official concerned admitted that there would be no compensation for the loss of trade by businesses, like tomato and flower-growers whose trade had largely vanished. Owners of pedigree cattle would get no compensation even though their herds would degenerate due to lack of breeding and feeding requisites. All investments would lose interest in the Island, while Islanders would also suffer from increased taxes and lower wages and thus be unable to save. The disappearance of many materials meant that maintenance of houses and domestic appliances was impossible.

Just at the moment the Channel Islands lost a third of their population they were compelled to pay the costs of the Occupation in conformity with the Hague Convention of 1907, which laid down conditions for the treatment of civilians by occupying forces. They continued to pay until 1942 when the Germans agreed to shoulder three-quarters of their own costs. Occupations costs included the wages of those employed by the Germans, the cost of transport and public utilities, and the rents of requisitioned property. John Leale on Guernsey and Edgar Dorey on Jersey had their work cut out to make ends meet, and in spite of all they tried to do the two main Islands were forced into debt. The budget surplus in Guernsey was converted into a debt of £3,022,400 by 1944. Leale calculated the Occupation cost his Island about seven million pounds sterling, and that the total debt was over four million pounds by Liberation Day. On Jersey the government had a debt of over five million by the same date. Tax was raised to try and meet these difficulties. In Guernsey income tax rose from 9d to 4s in the pound and in Jersey the figures were a rise from 1/6 to 5s in the pound. Higher rates of tax were also raised proportionately. In addition, purchase tax was introduced of a halfpenny for every 6d of goods purchased by a merchant or vendor although foodstuffs were exempted. After liberation, the government in London gave £3.7 million to Jersey and £3.2 million to Guernsey to liquidate their debts as quickly as possible.

Financial difficulties were compounded by the introduction of Occupation Reichsmarks (RM) in July 1940 at a favourable rate of excha
nge for the Germans. Whereas the
RM stood at 11.10 to the pound, the occupation orders proscribed a rate of 5 marks to the pound helping to precipitate the troops' buying spree. Germans and others who used this money had it paid into the banks where it was credited in sterling. The governments of the Islands then bought the RM back from the banks to pay some of the occupation costs. Surplus marks could be used for purchases in France. Twenty, five, and two RM, and fifty pfennig coins were introduced, and these gradually drove out all but the copper sterling coins as silver coins were hoarded or sold on the black market. To meet the gap the Island governments had to produce notes of low-denomination. Eventually RM became the main currency, and after fluctuating considerably settled down at 9.36 RM to the pound in September 1942. The final stage was reached towards the end of 1943 when the Germans decided to confiscate the remaining British paper money, and RM became the official Island currency.

Economic disruption meant that by 1945 apart from a credit balance in trade with France the Islands' traditional staples had been regulated and plundered without exception. This was to contribute greatly to the food problems of the Islanders from the beginning of 1941 which reached desperate straits by the summer of 1944. Those charged with control of agriculture and fisheries had a thankless task not least because the Germans persistently interfered in matters where lack of knowledge of local climate, sea and soil conditions could only lead to disasters.

On Guernsey agriculture was run by Raymond Falla succeeded by Michael Wynn Sayer in January 1941. He was among those deported in early 1943 when Ernest de Garis took over. There was also a glasshouse utilization board run by A.M. Drake with little success until he was replaced by Percy Dorey in May 1941. On Jersey, Touzel Bree was in charge throughout. Agriculture was directly affected by seizure of land, and requisitioning of produce either by quotas or by direct seizure. The drying up of the export trade seriously aff
ected farmers, and imports of fe
edstuffs, fertilizers and machinery ceased.

Typical of the problems besetting farmers were petrol rationing and confiscation of vehicles like lorries. As early as 12 July 1940 Mrs Tremayne heard there was no petrol in Guernsey, and saw farmers coming over to Sark to buy up all the horses. Since ambulances and motor buses were also replaced by horses there was sharp competition, and the Germans were willing to hire out their own horses to farmers. Others were imported from France. Overwork and lack of proper fodder soon meant that some horses were worked into the ground, and in 1942 an observer commented 'the poor beasts
are
just living skeletons. They are suffering from lack of food, the same as we are'. Oxen were sometimes used to draw heavy loads and Longmate says women and young boys were harnessed to lighter machinery like rollers and harrows.

The fundamental problem was to find a substitute market or replacement crops for the main cash crops on Jersey of potatoes and tomatoes, and on Guernsey of flowers and tomatoes. Exports of tomatoes from Guernsey, for instance, fell from 39,960 tons in 1939 to a mere 5,000 in 1943. The new requirements were to feed the Island population deprived of imports, and also the German garrison. In Jersey the main change was the replacement of potatoes with wheat. On Guernsey matters were more difficult. The terrain was harsher, and a large acreage was taken up with greenhouses. These needed plentiful supplies of fuel and water which grew increasingly short as the years passed, and a decision was taken by the Forestry Board to fell trees for new greenhouses and for fuel. Attempts to grow crops like wheat in the greenhouses failed entirely, although sweetcorn was successfully cultivated.

The German authorities intervened at every turn with bureaucratic forms, detailed regulations designed to prevent farmers keeping produce for themselves, or selling to the black market, and towards the end an agricultural police, the Hilfspolizci, under military orders and armed, patrolling farms to prevent theft and ensure that regulations were obeyed.

Mrs
Tremayne
managed to keep a few hens she fed on house scraps and potato peelings, but after a month or so she was complaining the Germans had ordered Sark to provide 15 dozen new laid eggs a week. 'We get a few, but I hide them, it will be sure death if I am caught', she wrote with some exaggeration.

On Guernsey, the Germans were angry when production in the greenhouses began to fall off, and in November 1941 ordered the agricultural authorities to provide 50 extra tons of vegetables per month for the next three months, and 70 extra tons a month thereafter for the Ge
rman forces. A Dutch firm, Timme
r Ltd., was found to carry out the work, Island labour was bribed by favourable conditions, and Dutch and French workers imported. The Island authorities objected that the scheme was impossible and obtained a concession - winter production was reduced to 30 tons a month, but in the end, as usual, the controlling committee, with the honourabl
e exception of Sir Abraham Laine
, voted to accept the German demand.

German economic policies were not designed to benefit the occupied but the occupier, and looked only to maximizing production with little knowledge of how this might be obtained. Major-General Erich M
ü
lle
r made this plain enough in May 1942. 'During my tours of inspection I daily have the opportunity of observing the conditions under which the Island population has to live nowadays. I do not underestimate the difficulties, but difficulties
are
there to be surmounted. If the necessities of war demand the taking away of agricultural land, the remaining portion must be worked more intensively. A slack utilisation of land and greenhouses cannot be tolerated.'