Jersey under occupation

A change of plan

We started the day with a good breakfast at the hotel, in the Harbour Room restaurant which, as the name suggests has good views over the marina. A shame then that those views were marred by grey skies and rain.

The plan today had been to visit the famed Jersey Zoo, but given the disappointing weather we decided on Plan B, a trip to the War Tunnels. We caught a bus from the nearby bus station, number 28, after a brief delay due to a problem with the bus, which refused to start. A replacement was soon brought alongside and we left only five minutes late.

The journey to the tunnels took about 15 minutes. On arrival we paid the £13 adult fee and in addition to our tickets were given a gender appropriate ID card and told to look out for ‘our person’ among the photos and information boards.

The extensive network of tunnels was dug during the occupation of Jersey by the Nazis during World War Two, from 1940 to 1945. It was designed to allow the German occupying infantry to withstand Allied air raids and bombardment in the event of an invasion. The Nazis used more than 5,000 forced and slave workers from nations across Europe to dig this complex over 50 metres underground. They lived in harsh conditions, although how they were treated seems to some extent to have varied according to nationality, with the Russians suffering worse treatment than, say, the Spanish or Dutch. My assumption is that this was because the Russians were actively engaged in fighting the Nazis while some other nations had surrendered and been occupied.

In 1943, the tunnels were converted into an emergency hospital.

As you walk through the tunnels different display areas each tell one aspect of the history of the island during that period - the British decision not to defend the Channel Islands, the difficult choice facing the islanders, who had only 24 hours in which to opt either to stay or be evacuated, life here under German occupation and eventual liberation on 9 May 1945 - a date still marked each year by a public holiday. The following more detailed descriptions of each section of the story below are taken from the Jersey War Tunnels website, but the photos are of course all my own:

To Leave or to Stay?
As the UK announced that it would not defend the Channel Islands, residents were faced with an impossible choice - to stay and face the unknown enemy or to go, leaving behind families, friends and possessions.

First Contact
As German troops arrived in their thousands, Jersey was firmly under the jackboot. Discover those uncertain days as the occupied learned to live with their occupiers.

The Paper War
With little physical resistance to deal with, it wasn't long before the German command began interfering in daily life. Its main weapon - a formidable bureaucracy, generating new laws and orders on a daily basis.

Daily Life
As restrictions and shortages increased, daily life for islanders became more difficult. This recreation of a Jersey home during the occupation gives an insight into the make do and mend mentality that kept residents going throughout these dark years.

Whispers & Lies
Under occupation, accepted realities change for good. In a small community where trust is everything, can neighbours and friends still be trusted? Whispers and Lies gives you an idea of how things change when huge strains are placed on the bonds that hold people together.

Cooperation & Resistance
Nothing is as it seems and choices are hard to make. And how do you resist when you have no weapons? Examine the dilemmas faced by everyone during the occupation, from the UK government to the island's leaders and islanders in their daily lives.

OT Gallery
This impressive interactive exhibit will reveal more about this prolific engineering organisation, its methods and the people who, willingly or not, worked to build Hitler's Atlantic Wall and changed the face of Europe forever.

The Unfinished Tunnel
Men toiled with picks and shovels, loading rocks into trolleys and pushing them back up to the tunnel entrance. In the semi-dark and the damp, with the constant fear of rock falls, this back-breaking work went on in 12-hour shifts. You experience it all through an interactive audio-visual experience in the unfinished tunnel itself.

Fortress Island
Far in excess of their military significance, the Channel Islands used one twelfth of the reinforced concrete of the entire Atlantic wall. Had the Nazis deployed these resources more reasonably, they could have doubled the strength of the Atlantic wall and had a profound effect on the Allied advance.

Under Siege
After D-Day, the Channel Islands were cut off from all supply routes through France. The last year of the occupation was characterised by hunger and desperation.

Desperate Times
In the final months of Liberation, Islanders became desperate. Food shortages were acute and with no knowledge of when the war would end, the Island entered its darkest times.

Air Raid Shelter
Step inside a replica air raid shelter to get a feel for the conditions, noises and bleakness of the situation faced during World War II.

Liberation
Discover the event that islanders will never forget: 9 May 1945. Finally, after five years of occupation, British forces arrived to free the Channel Islands. Scenes of happiness and relief characterised this most wonderful of days, which is still marked by a public holiday and celebrations today.

As to the people on our ID cards, we found them both. Chris’s man, Clifford Cohu, was one of many islanders who did what they could to resist the occupation. When war broke out he was rector of St Saviour. With three of his parishioners he acquired an illegal radio set (German authorities had banned their use by islanders).

The Island wiki tells his story:

My Lucie was a French artist who was sentenced to death by firing squad for leaving inflammatory notes on German staff cars but had her sentence commuted to life imprisonment on the intervention of the Bailif (the governor of the island who had been left by the British with the unenviable role of running the island under the Nazis).

Later I found out more about Lucille Schwob online and it turns out she was a fascinating woman. She was born in 1894 in Nates, France, to a Jewish family. She was sent to school in England, and later the Sorbonne University in Paris, where she started to experiment with photography, mainly self-portraits. She adopted the pseudonym Claude Cahun, deliberately non-gender specific. At the age of 17, she met Suzanne Malherbe, a graphic artist who worked under the name Marcel Moore [also mentioned on the display board I photographed]. Moore became her lover and companion and, later, her half-sister, after Cahun’s father married Moore’s widowed mother. During the 1920s they lived in Paris, collaborating on various written works, sculptures, photomontages and collages.

The following is based on the Wikipedia article about her, with minor grammar and factual corrections (the latter based on other sources):

We would probably not have visited the tunnels were it not for this morning’s rain, and we both found them absolutely fascinating, so we ended up being grateful for the bad weather! But after walking through the tunnels we emerged to improving weather, so we had a coffee in the café then took the bus back to St Helier. It was time to revert to Plan A and visit the zoo after all. But as this is becoming a long page, and I took lots of photos at the zoo in addition to these at the tunnels, I think I will finish here and save the zoo for the next entry ...