The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 6

6 HOME NEWS THE GUARDIAN Tuesday May 5 1992 IBiHiBWiWiiii itwiilil Betravalss liberated France told British intelligence that the island authorities had a difficult MailtfrtliBmiilMi mdWMKmtaw role but that "islanders gen erally condemned them in varying degrees for passiv ity, memciency ana over- willingness to collaborate according to 1944 intelli- sence reports. There is still great bitter ness among islanders, "Things like Victor Carey getting a knighthood just leave a bitter taste, Jo Miere of Jersey said. "Some of the German officers were more straightforward than our own people. At least you knew where you stood with the Germans." Jersevman Basil Le iBrun remembers a neighbour who worked inrttte. Qirgatiisattpn Todt.

the rthan labours vice, oh' Alderney. He wore the OT, Kham uniform ana a Swastika armband. Many people were sent needlessly to their deaths, by informers." said Jersevman Maurice Qreen. His father, Ktnnlev. was Infriwn wi' on for havins a radidv.bv-tw6 local men, who weri TewardedSl and bottom left, believed to be the only ones taken bv an inmate inside a concentration camn before liberation.

The nhntnmnnhpr was stun who spent 7 Vi months in the camp after a neighbour told the Germans he had a radio. Below right, a policeman on Jersey helps FTER the theft of Jersey's entire wartime archives last year, dealers were shown docu- ments previously denied to researchers which contained damaging evidence about the deportation of Jews and the activities of informers. Twenty islanders died and dozens more served sen tences in German concentration camps. According to rel atives and Mends, half of them are believed to have been informed on by neigh bours. These claims are strengthened by intelligence reports in the Public Record Office, which allege that the German authorities were receiving 200 letters a week Irom informers.

Dealers who saw the stolen documents allege that they included papers on the regis tration and deportation of Jews. There were copies of interviews with islanders to establish their "racial purity" and the post-war correspondence of a woman who tried unsuccessfully to, get compensation from the Jersey government for being imprisoned as a Jew after it filled in a Nazi form wrongly. Seventeen Jews were registered on the Channel Islands. Three have been traced to Auschwitz, where they died. The Holocaust Memorial Archives in Jerusalem reveal close co-operation on Guernsey between the bailiff, Victor Carey, the police and the German Feldkommandantur in tracking down Jews.

The Germans' anti-Jewish laws were registered by the Jersey and Guernsey governments. Dealers also saw Jersey police prosecution flies containing evidence from, informers, and files giving details of islanders who profited from selling food to the Germans. The Jersey government dismissed the theft of the documents as opportunist and claimed the files contained nothing scandalous. The police now saxlhyhaj recovered mosi 01 luem. Both island governments have always denied that they know of any evidence that British officials assisted the deportation of Jews.

In a gesture of official exoneration, Carey and Alexander Cou-tanche, bailiff of Jersey during the occupation, received knighthoods after the war. The Channel Islands were the only corner of occupied Europe to have the same governing elite in power before, during and after occupation. Islanders who escaped to How occupied islanders fell into line with Informers led to Buchenwald agony with 1,000 marks. Stanley Green survived 7 'A months in Buchenwald. Harold Le Druillenec and his sister Louisa Gould were sent to concentration camps after the Germans were in formed that they were har bouring a Russian UT pris oner.

Mrs uoiud died in Ravensbruck, while Mr Le Druillenec survived Belsen. John Ingrouille was only a teenager when he died from a disease he contracted while in a German prison. Ernest Plevin, now living in Australia, was in the Guernsey police force and remembers accompanying a Feldpolizei officer to arrest Ingrouille. "Tne boy nad spoKen out ot turn to a local girl, saving he would cut the throat of one of the soldiers working with him in a kitchen. It was just foolish talk.

The girl conveyed the message to the Germans." Mr Plevin also claims that two British agents, Hubert Nicolle and James Symes, who landed on Guernsey were betrayed by a girl who was' having an affair with a German soldier. To betray a slLagenliaatreasonable ofience. A fatnr 'and son, both called Peter Painter, were betrayed after listening to a radio in 1943. They were sent to Cherche Midi prison in Saris, then to Natzweiler concentration camp in Silesia where they died. On Guernsey, an underground news-sheet called GUNS was betrayed by an Irish informer.

Five men were imprisoned; two died. One of the survivors, Frank Falla, said he reported the informant after liberation and was ignored. black- market food and the handsome soldiers livened up the dreariness of occupation life. The bitterest resentment is still reserved for those who exploited the food scarcity when the islands were cut off from France after D-Day to make money on the black market from inflated prices. British intelligence compiled reports in 1944 by questioning islanders who had escaped to liberated France.

"Dealing in the black market is rampant," said one who escaped. "It's practically universal from the highest to the lowest levels." Another explained: "The general view is 'More fool you if you haven't made a fortune too'." Maurice Green, from Jersey, remembers being sent on an errand to a States member the Channel Island equivalent of an MP in late 1944. "I couldn't believe the food I saw in his home. While ordinary people were starving, this man was living very well." Helmut Nitsche was in a German tank unit on Jersey during the war; he never returned to Germany and now lives in Che- shunt, Hertfordshire. He remembers: "A lot of people were involved in the black mar cluded for investigating and prosecuting the worst cases.

But in May 1945, the Home Secretary, Herbert Morrison the first minister to visit the islands after liberation indicated an about-turn. The Jersey Evening Press reported that he said: "I am not sure that everything was always within the law but if he (the Bailiff of Jersey) has done anything that needs whitewashing at the other end, I will take care of it." Jerseyman Norman Le Brocq remembers: "Mr Morrison made an address announcing there would be no prosecutions because no collaborators had been found. He expected people to applaud him but there was just an angry silence." An investigation by the Civil Affairs Unit (CAU) reported in Scenes from Buchenwald. too manager of a Jersey cinema, ket, Germans and islanders. There were some senior officers who were extremely friendly with the islanders." Some Channel Islanders were incensed that after the war those who had made money during the occupation were able to benefit from the extremely favourable rate of exchange the British offered for the Occupation Reichsmarks, which had become worthless.

"One of my dreams towards the end of the occupation was that all these buggers who'd LOUI8 BERRIER, a resident bf Ernes charge with having released a pigeon with messago for England. He wu, therefore, (Mtwced for espionage by tho Court Martial and SHOT on the 2nd of August. Aujuit 3rd, 1MI. Court Mania) Rough justice A speedy response to espionage suspect 194S that "a number of people acted in an unseemly, undesirable or even disgraceful way" and concluded that 20 cases of collaboration warranted prosecution. Twelve were passed on to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Theobald Matthews.

"Although a few cases disclose some prima facie evidence of conduct of a highly reprehensible and even possibly disloyal nature," Mr Matthews wrote to the Lieutenant Governor of the islands in January 1946, "none of them amounts either to high treason or treachery, which are the only two offences for which an islander can be tried in England in respect of acts done on the island and which both carry only a death penalty." He concluded: "It is not possible to bring these people to trial." a German sailor find his way "My father was put on a work-party whose job was to lift bodies on to a cart to take to the incinerator. He told me there were piles of bodies as far as the eye could see. Some were still alive. They'd been left for dead because of a typhoid epidemic," Maurice Green said. Mr Green has a collection of photos taken by his father with a home-made camera, which he believes are the only pictures taken inside a concentration camp by an inmate before liberation.

"He was made to drop the bodies sometimes they were alive and usually they had been eaten by rats through the chute and into the crematorium. Then he used to have to take an ice-bucket and scrape away the fat from the incinerator." Mr Green paused and shook his head, tears in bis eyes. "My lather told me everything. But every time he would always break down about that experience." Stanley Cjreen survived be cause he was transferred to Laufen camp. After the war, he convalesced in Southampton before returning to his family.

My father was a changed man. He nad lost several stone and inches. His fingers were permanently disfigured because of torture. He never recovered mentally or physically. For years he would just sit in front of the television in a sort of stupor.

He died in 1974 of a massive stroke. The autopsy doctor told me that it had been brought on by the physical trauma he had suf fered in Buchenwald." In 1948, Stanley Green received 1,800 compensation from the German government. He was interviewed by an American prosecution lawyer in 1945 and his evi dence was used at the Nuremberg trials. "He was very bitter that the British never wanted to know about his experiences and that no one would take action about those who informed on him." made money on the black mar ket would lose all of it'," said Jersevman Norman Le Brocq. "But the occupation currency was honoured by the British Government.

People had bags stuffed with Reichsmarks. "There are some who used the money to found businesses. There's one guy who roams the island in a fancy car, smoking a cigar and thinking he's a miniature Churchill. I was bitter that they had got away scot-free." A War Profits Levy was passed by the Jersey government to tax fortunes accumulated in wartime, but the tax records have never been seen and rumours persist that fortunes survived unscathed. The islanders who worked as cooks, farmhands and clerks were often recruited by island officials for the Germans.

Few are as honest as Daphne Pope, one of the few English people on Alderney during the war, who says: "Of course I did washing for the Germans, how else could I feed my children?" Diaries of German onicers on Jersey and Guernsey describe the cocktail parties and friendships they had with islanders and make the occupation sound like a holiday camp. A few Germans enjoyed their stay so Madetebw Bunting and Alex Kershaw WINSTON Churchill liked to speak of Britain's "unblemished record" in standing up to Nazism, but the Channel Islands provided uncomfortable evidence that if successfully invaded, Britain might have been no different from the rest of occupied Europe. It was a constant struggle to find food and clothing and many islanders showed great bravery and resourcefulness. But some because they were frightened, hungry, or simply opportunistic collaborated with the Germans. The average islander may not have committed treason, but the pragmatism shown has provoked arguments ever since.

What constitutes acceptable cooperation with an occupying force and what is unacceptable collaboration? Why was there so little resistance? The pragmatic islander saw few jobs other than those offered by the Germans; money could be made selling them Europe sions repressed during the war. "Jerrybags" had to be rescued by the army from mobs. "I saw one woman very badly handled. They stuffed a rag doused in petrol between her legs and really roughed her about," says Maurice Green. Stella Perkins of Jersey says: "I remember one poorvwoman bemg chased down tne? street, She kept falling A big crowd were alter tier, uoa knows what happened to her." The most famous jerrybag was nicknamed Muni the Spy, "The townspeople had a rope around her neck in the square but she was released wnen sol diers arrived on the scene," said Jerseyman Michael Ginns.

"The only good thing you could say about her was that she did it all openly. She turned a lot of people in to the Germans." Arthur Kent was a member of the Jersey Royalists group, who wanted collaborators brought to justice. "I wrote to the Jersey Evening Post denouncing people. One man threatened libel action. "I received a letter containing a bullet and a message in German saying that if I didn't stop denouncing people in the paper I would come to serious harm.

divisive been split over allegations of collaboration. "It was rightly decided to go canny. I thought at the time this was very unfair, because it seemed to me that a chap who had put his life on the line for King was being equated with a chap who had been comforting the enemy." One of the most persistent rumours is that a few of the worst collaborators, black marketeers and were secretly taken off the islands and resettled with new identities in England, Australia and South Africa. "Immediately after the liberation there was a ban on anyone coming or going from the islands for five to six weeks, during which time some people just disappeared," Mr Le Brocq said. much that they remained on the islands and married local women.

Mr Nitsche has fond memories of Jersey. "We got on pretty well with the locals. There was little open resentment shown towards us. In general, we had a good time." Guernsey's illegitimacy rate quadrupled during the war and fingers are pointed at some prominent islanders alleged to be half-German. "The Germans looked magnificent.

The officers who arrived on the islands in 1940 were perfect gentlemen," one Channel Island woman, who does not wish to be named, remembers. "All the girls from Boots tore out and and went dancing with the Germans. "Some of the worst 'jerry-bags' had to leave the islands after the war. Several were dealt with pretty roughly by the islanders. But so many women went with the Germans.

As soon as they left, they started going with the British soldiers." She added: "I wish I'd learnt German. I'd have had a better time if I'd fraternised. My mother always said there's no point being too patriotic." Liberation unleashed the ten The true story of what happened during the war was never to come out." Daphne Pope was one of the few English people on Alderney during the occupation. She recounts how her husband, George, confessed to the first British officer he saw after liberation that he had been a boat pilot for the Germans. "They laughed at him, and said he was the first Channel Islander to admit to it.

They told him not to worry, they had orders from Churchill to cover everything up." Captain Theodore Pantcheff, who headed the military intelligence investigation into Alder-ney's slave camps, wrote privately after the war that Churchill had been adversely impressed by how families had oiEqgffia fTANLEY Green, a Jer- Osey cinema manager, never recovered from the seven months he spent in Buchenwald after a neighbour told the Germans he had a radio, according to his son, Maurice, writes Madeleine Bunting. Mr Green died in 1974. His son vividly remembers the day January 16, 1944 when the police arrived to take his father away. The Germans had discovered that Stanley Green's assistants at the West cinema in St Heller Leonard Proby and Fred Coomes had hidden wire less equipment in the roof. Mr lireen was deeply in volved in resistance activities like cutting telegraph wires and photographing fortifications, but knew nothing of the radio, his son main tains.

"My father was informed on. When he returned after the war, having spent seven months in hospital because of his time in Buchenwald, he told me who the men were. If I had had a rifle at the time I would have shot them," Mr Green said. "My father was made to stand behind a door in prison while these informers told all they knew about his activities. What they didn't know they made up." Stanley tireen was impris oned in France without a trial and was caught up in the panic transfer of inmates to German concentration camps after D-Day.

He was put in a cattle-truck for a five-day journey, developed severe dysentery, and was suffering abdominal injuries from kicks to the stomach. On arrival at Buchenwald, he was stripped, doused in disin fectant, had his head and body shaved, and given an old pair of trousers and a thin shirt. He slept in the open for six weeks on heaps of stones, barefooted, bareheaded and without covering. Prosecutions rejected as unworkable and It is an explanation which has never satisfied some islanders. They believe there was a careful cover-up.

Mr Le Brocq asked a Captain Kent, of the CAU, what would happen to the thick dossier he had drawn up on collaboration. He was told: "It'll all be recorded and forgotten." One Jersey bank clerk, outraged by islanders cashing in bags stuffed with occupation Reichsmarks made from trading with the Germans after liberation, drew up a list of their names. His sister (who declined to give her name) remembers: "He was told by one of the liberation force officers to tear the list up. He told him that Churchill had said that the British Empire was not to know about things like that. MadsMiw Bunting THE Channel Islanders remain divided to this day.

Some argue that the Government used legal loopholes to wriggle out of awkward trials of collaborators, while others fiercely defend the. islands' patriotism and argue that there were no trials because most of the population were loyal. Whitehall drew up plans for the resumption of British government after liberation and with information indicating collaboration, provisions were in.