{"id":3679,"date":"2024-05-26T11:40:35","date_gmt":"2024-05-26T11:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/26\/this-quiet-british-island-was-once-the-site-of-nazi-atrocities-a-new-inquiry-reveals-its-truths\/"},"modified":"2024-05-26T11:40:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-26T11:40:35","slug":"this-quiet-british-island-was-once-the-site-of-nazi-atrocities-a-new-inquiry-reveals-its-truths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/26\/this-quiet-british-island-was-once-the-site-of-nazi-atrocities-a-new-inquiry-reveals-its-truths\/","title":{"rendered":"This quiet British island was once the site of Nazi atrocities. A new inquiry reveals its truths"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alderney, a quiet British island in the English Channel known for its outstanding natural beauty, was once the site of the only Nazi camps <\/strong>on British soil \u2013 and a hell on Earth for its thousands of inmates. <\/p>\n

A fresh inquiry, ordered by the UK\u2019s Special Envoy for Post Holocaust Issues, Eric Pickles, and led by a panel of experts, has sought to determine the exact death toll of prisoners and laborers on Alderney, while also bringing an end to the conspiracy theories and misinformation surrounding the island. <\/p>\n

The findings were published on Wednesday and determined there were a greater number of deaths than initially documented following liberation, but found no evidence of a \u201cmini-Auschwitz.\u201d <\/p>\n

The inquiry also explored why the Nazi perpetrators \u2013 most of whom evaded justice \u2013 never stood trial in Britain. <\/p>\n

Stretching for three square miles, the island was occupied by the Nazis for most of World War II. During that time, three forced labor camps and a concentration camp called Lager Sylt were built. <\/p>\n

Nearly eight decades later, the fingerprints of Nazi occupation are still visible on the picturesque island, including bunkers, anti-tank walls and the notorious Water Lane tunnels constructed by the occupying forces to store munitions and fuel. <\/p>\n

According to its tourist board, the residents of Alderney \u2013 which has a population of just over 2,000 \u2013 gather once a year in May for a memorial service to commemorate the island\u2019s victims. <\/p>\n

Described by Pickles as housing the \u201cmost westerly concentration camp in the Third Reich,\u201d questions over the scale of horror that occurred on the island have persisted among locals as well as internationally \u2013 and the exact number of dead has never been clear, until now. <\/p>\n

The Channel Islands were the only British land the Germans occupied during World War II. Unlike Jersey and Guernsey \u2013 the other Nazi-occupied islands \u2013 Alderney was evacuated of nearly all of its residents, meaning the island does not have extensive war-time records. <\/p>\n

According to Pickles, the lack of records has led to unsubstantiated claims being made about Alderney and the war crimes that took place there. <\/p>\n

\u201cClaims of mass murder that anywhere else would be checked carefully have been accepted at face value,\u201d Pickles \u2013 who has stressed the importance of historic accuracy regarding the Holocaust \u2013 said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThird- or fourth-hand testimonies of atrocities, without any supporting evidence, are given as a fact\u2026 What happened on Alderney was bad enough with its brutality, sadism and murder, without the need for embellishment.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2018Unvarnished truth\u2019<\/h2>\n

Following the island\u2019s liberation from the Nazis, official figures from a post-war investigation put the death toll at 389. <\/p>\n

This figure has long been disputed. Historians, members of the Jewish community and members of the public have estimates ranging from hundreds to several thousand. <\/p>\n

Speculation has also been rife that the true scale of what happened on the island may have been deliberately concealed by the British government. <\/p>\n

The inquiry denies such theories. It found that the number of deaths in Alderney is unlikely to have exceeded 1,134, with a more likely range of deaths being between 641 and 1,027. <\/p>\n

In addition, at least 97 people died and one disappeared during transit to and from the island. <\/p>\n

The estimated minimum number of prisoners or laborers sent to Alderney throughout the German occupation stands between 7,608 and 7,812, the panel found. <\/p>\n

Alderney\u2019s camps, according to the inquiry, shared many of the traits of those in mainland Europe. Laborers were kept in atrocious conditions and forced to work long hours carrying out dangerous construction work. They were subject to beatings, maiming, torture and in some cases executions. <\/p>\n

The inquiry found that there is \u201cno evidence\u201d for arguing that many thousands of victims died. <\/p>\n

Assertions that Alderney housed an extermination center and constituted a \u201cmini-Auschwitz\u201d are also untrue, the panel found. <\/p>\n

\u201cPrisoners were treated appallingly, and life was cheap, but Alderney did not house a \u2018mini-Auschwitz\u2019; there was no extermination centre on the island,\u201d Pickles said. <\/p>\n

He added, \u201cAnyone who claims so has never visited Auschwitz or understood the extent of the Nazi\u2019s death factories in Eastern Europe.\u201d <\/p>\n

Pickles believes overestimated death tolls at the hands of the Nazis can be damaging and play into the hands of Holocaust deniers. <\/p>\n

\u201cAt a time when parts of Europe are seeking to rinse their history through the Holocaust, the British Isles must tell the unvarnished truth,\u201d he said. \u201cNumbers do matter. It is as much of a Holocaust distortion to exaggerate the number of deaths as it is to underplay the numbers.\u201d <\/p>\n

He added, \u201cExaggeration plays into the hands of Holocaust deniers and undermines the six million dead. The truth can never harm us.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u2018Egregious injustice\u2019<\/h2>\n

A separate section of the inquiry focused on the failure to prosecute war crimes committed in Alderney, something that it described as an \u201cegregious injustice.\u201d <\/p>\n

This was due to the British government\u2019s decision to hand the case over to the Soviet Union after World War II as the majority of victims were Soviet citizens. <\/p>\n

Research conducted by Anthony Glees, an academic and adviser to Pickles, found there had been a \u201csuccession of cover-ups\u201d on the part of the British government, which handed all Alderney\u2019s files of evidence over to the Soviet Union via the United Nations War Crimes commission on September 12, 1945. <\/p>\n

From there, the USSR decided to \u201cdo nothing with the evidence,\u201d according to Glees, meaning that the majority of perpetrators who had systematically tortured and in some cases murdered their victims escaped trial. <\/p>\n

Glees believes that this has deliberately been hidden from public view by the British government. He is calling on the government to issue an apology. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems scarcely understandable that Britain, of all countries, declined to try Nazi war criminals for appalling atrocities committed on British soil against citizens of some 30 nations,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, the British authorities passed all the evidence that they had carefully collected in the so-called \u2018Alderney Case\u2019 to the USSR\u2026 despite the USSR not having requested it and so, apparently, directly contravening Britain\u2019s international treaty obligations.\u201d <\/p>\n

According to Glee, the lack of trials of Alderney\u2019s war criminals has meant that justice was denied to victims and their families. <\/p>\n

Pickles, meanwhile, said the fact that the perpetrators never faced British justice is a \u201cstain on the reputations of successive British governments.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alderney, a quiet British island in the English Channel known for its outstanding natural beauty, was once the site of the only Nazi camps on British soil \u2013 and a hell on Earth for its thousands of inmates. A fresh inquiry, ordered by the UK\u2019s Special Envoy for Post Holocaust Issues, Eric Pickles, and led by a panel <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digitaltradecenter.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}