Spring-Summer Pure Jersey Part 1 with adverts:jersey Cover AW

Life and
Liberty
LIBERATION FESTIVAL LIBERATION DAY REVISITED THE JERSEY WAR TUNNELS
Overnight, motorists had to drive on the
right instead of the left, schoolchildren
were taught German and the deutschmark
replaced the pound. But that was just the
start of it. Newspapers were censored,
radio sets confiscated. Some people
managed to keep a crystal set under the
floorboards but breaking the rules resulted
in a prison sentence. During the course of
the Occupation, thousands of islanders
were deported to internment or
concentration camps in Germany.
As we walk, Tom points out the ghostly
remnants of gun emplacements, and tells
me of the human cost in turning Jersey into
Hitler’s ‘fortress island’. ‘An enormous
workforce was shipped in, mostly Russian
prisoners of war but also refugees from the
Spanish Civil War.’ Islanders old enough to
remember describe men from this
wretched slave army being marched
through the streets of St Helier each
morning for their day’s labour and returning
exhausted at night.
The most dangerous work was
underground, building a huge network of
tunnels designed to be an impregnable
fortress for the 12,000 occupying troops in
case of invasion. Now it’s home to one of
the most impressive museums you’ll ever
visit: the Jersey War Tunnels.
It’s wholly appropriate that the 11ft-high
steel sculpture standing sentinel at the
entrance, entitled Silence, is dedicated to
the plight of the wartime slaves
remembered. Waiting beside it to show me
round is Robert De La Cour, the museum’s
Operations Manager.
He hands me an identity card. ‘Every visitor
to the tunnels is given one,’ Robert tells me.
‘It’s a replica of the card every islander had
to carry during the Occupation.’
But it’s not just any old replica. There are
many different versions. Inside mine is a
photograph of a middle-aged woman named
Louisa May Gould who ran the general store
at St Ouen’s. Her husband died before the
war began and both her sons were serving
overseas in the British Army. She took pity
on a young Russian prisoner who’d escaped
from the labour camp, came to her house
and asked for help. But she was betrayed by
a neighbour’s anonymous letter, arrested and
deported to a European prison camp. She
lost her life in the gas chambers of
Ravensbruck in February 1945, only a few
weeks before Liberation.
This poignant, heroic tale is just one of many
island experiences retold in an extraordinary
and compelling way within the War Tunnels.
The spooky underground passageways and
chambers themselves form the galleries and
exhibition spaces, taking you from
‘Threatened Island’, through to ‘Daily Life’,
‘Resistance’ and ultimately ‘Liberation’.
The grinding daily reality of the Occupation
emerges through the eyes not just of Jersey
men, women and children but slave workers
and German soldiers too. Sometimes the
voices are those of actors, but in many
instances it is the real life individuals we see
and hear telling their stories of deportation,
attempted escapes, narrow squeaks, the
constant feeling of being watched and the
severe shortages of food and basic supplies.
One story tells of an old lady pushed over
in the street by one of a group of German
officers. She got up and slapped him and
was imprisoned for 28 days. Other voices
talk of ordinary foot soldiers trying to
befriend the islanders, but you didn’t dare
be seen talking to them for fear of being
branded a collaborator. Some romances
blossomed between Jersey girls and the
soldiers. They were shunned and abused.
There was no greater shame. The thorny
issue of islander informing on islander, as
happened in the case of Louisa May Gould,
is also tackled. It’s all there, warts and all.
Eventually islanders and soldiers alike were
in danger of starving to death. Churchill
wouldn’t authorise sending supplies for fear
that they’d go to the German troops rather
than the islanders. ‘Coffee’ was made from
ground acorns, ‘tea’ from the leaves of
blackberries and roses, ‘toothpaste’ from
powdered cuttlefish and ivy leaves. Curtains
were pulled down to make into clothing.
Robert leads me into the final tunnel,
entitled ‘Towards Tomorrow’ where the
ethos is very much a constructive one,
looking to the future, not hanging on to
blame. These were Hitler’s armies, rather
than Germany’s. Hitler is long gone…
universal friendship is what matters now.
If anyone wonders why Liberation Day is still
so significant in Jersey – why it’s called ‘A
Celebration of Freedom’ and why there’s
laughter and music and thanksgiving – then
the answer is in the War Tunnels. The people
of Jersey know only too well what it is like to
have freedom taken away. For those of us
lucky to have been born and bred in a
country that has never experienced
occupation, it’s almost impossible to imagine.
SUE AT CORBIÈRE RADIO TOWER
Next morning after a champagne breakfast
among some of Jersey’s older residents –
an emotional occasion at which poignant
memories are exchanged – I’m leaning out
of my hotel window overlooking Liberation
Square. Every other available window in the
square is also filled with onlookers. There
are excited crowds down below too, all
dressed in their best and oblivious to the
grey sky that threatens possible showers.
The band strikes up and the pageantry
begins… vintage cars, uniformed veterans,
troops throwing sweets, scouts, guides,
cubs, brownies, all part of a cavalcade
proceeding through the streets of St Helier,
recreating the euphoric liberation scenes of
62 years ago. The Duke of Kent and
Jersey’s dignitaries take their seats and the
Union Jack is hoisted on the Pomme d’Or’s
balcony below me.
To be in Jersey for Liberation Day uplifts
the spirits, reminds us of some eternal
truths. Right on cue, the sun breaks
through the clouds.
24 pureJersey 1 book online at www.jersey.com 25