1.	Some basic facts

2.	The Occupation of the Channel Islands

3.	Local authorities and their dealing with the occupation

4.	A model occupation?

5.	What does it mean “ to collaborate”

6.	Conclusion

Literature, Sources

"Jews, forced workers and the others
The occupation of the Channel Islands came in a few days after the evacuation of Dunkirk. Some other Islanders, who did not manage to escape earlier, were supposed by Hitler to leave in late 1941. Those people were mostly not – native islanders or foreigners, who could be eventually used as a working power etc. However, the plan was stopped by Germans themselves at first. Colonel Knackfuss, the commanding officer of both Bailwicks, and other officers considered this conception of evacuation as “politically very risky”. Nevertheless, they had to obey the order and since 15 October 1942 the transports began. Hundreds of people were removed from their homes to be put into working, internment and concentration camps in Germany or exploited in other ways. Transports to concentration camps were crowded by Jews, political opponents, communists, Freemasons, clergy, those sentenced for acts of resistance and other “inconvenient” groups. On the whole 570 people were arrested during 1940 – 1944. Some of them were sent to concentration camps situated in Poland or Germany, some of them also into Sylt, a concentration - working camp situated in Alderney. In camps or prisons died 22 native people from Jersey and 9 from Guernsey.
The Islands also experienced an importation of people. The Nazi organisation Todt entered the Channel Islands in 1941. The project of the Atlantic wall required workers. We can distinguish two cathegories of workers – volunteers or forcibly recruited, but paid workers e.g. from Spain, Holland, France, and ill – treated Soviet citizens, prisoners of war and Jews. The members of the first group were paid in Reichmarks and could leave a camp freely after work. Jews, often from Poland or Czechoslovakia, who came around 1942, worked on building of the underground hospital in Jersey. The Soviets and Jews were treated as prisoners, without getting appropriate food rations. The Soviets often tried to escape out of the camp, althoug there were not many places where to hide on the Islands. Those lucky ones were hidden by the citizens, as showed the case of Louisa Gould, who hid a Russian escapee in her house. One of her sons had already died in Normandy, when she was asked by the Russian for help. She decided to take care of him, although she realized, that the punishment for such crime meant several months in prison. Unfortunately, Mrs. Gould and her relatives were disclosed and punished. She was sent to France and then into concentration camp Ravensbrück, where she was gassed in January 1945. Other examples of such heroism are mostly anonymous, due to the fact that people like Louisa Gould used nicknames to disguise the police, whose role during the occupation was at least controverse. Some policemen provided Jews and other endangered groups of people with false documents, some of them, as e.g. C. Orange, followed their duty so consistently that it was almost a collaboration. Orange strictly forbade his inferiors to provide any false documents . The police also faced the dillema of suppressing information leading to disclosures of saboteurs or wireless sets owners or not."