HOL0106 - Evidence on Holocaust education

HOL0106

Written evidence submitted by Dr Gillian Carr

Director of Studies in Archaeology and Anthropology, St Catherine’s College, Cambridge University

I was concerned to read the couple of mistakes and confusions about the Channel Islands within the text of the recent debate. In particular, there were two statements that were made which were not accurate and which should have been checked first, and I would like to point them out in the interest of making sure that the Holocaust educators in this committee are better informed for their future work. The first was by Sir Eric Pickles, who said that:

‘Many people benefited from the looting of the houses, from the sale of Jewish property. It should be brought up to people that you were allowed to take 20 kilograms with you. That is the size that you can take on an aircraft. What happened to the rest of the property? Most often it was descended upon by neighbours, who looted it. That happened in Jersey, when people took a decision to leave. I think we need to understand that the economy was boosted by the looting of Jewish property.’

The clear suggestion here is that when the Jewish population of Jersey left the island, their houses were looted by their neighbours. This has never been alleged. Sir Eric is confusing two events. The first is that when some of the population (both non-Jewish and Jewish) of the Channel Islands left as refugees in June 1940, their houses were looked after by relatives and neighbours. When the Germans arrived, they requisitioned many of those houses and looted the property; accounts of this are in many occupation diaries. The second event is when the Germans deported 2,198 people from Jersey, Guernsey and Sark in 1942 and 1943 to send them to civilian internment camps in Germany. Those targeted were people born in the UK, as it was believed that they would prove trouble makers. They also later targeted people who had spent time in prison for acts of resistance, people who had served in the armed forces, and the British Jews. There were 9 in the latter category spread between both islands (and one of which was not a Jew but was married to a Jewish woman, so 8 were Jewish (and all of them came back again after the war). Indeed, a number of these 2,198 people’s homes were looted by other islanders who at this stage in the war were extremely hungry or starving and in great need of things to sell to buy food to eat. For Eric Pickles to suggest Jewish homes were looted as part of collaboration or the boosting of the economy can be seen as an exaggeration of either historical event.

Later on, Professor Rosen said ‘… Let’s remember Guernsey, shall we? … They did get to Guernsey and all nine Jews who were in Guernsey were deported to Auschwitz.’

In fact, three Jews in Guernsey were deported to Auschwitz.