Nazi camp inquiry finds succession of cover-ups

[sl8]

Last edited Wed May 22, 2024, 12:10 PM - Edit history (1)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgg8y656yro

Nazi camp inquiry finds succession of cover-ups

19 minutes ago
Charlotte Cox, BBC News

A "succession of cover-ups" meant nobody was brought to justice for the deaths of hundreds of people in Nazi camps on the British island of Alderney, a panel of experts has found.

The inquiry ordered by Lord Pickles found it likely 641-1,027 people died under the "brutality, sadism and murder" of Nazi rule on the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands.

It found the Holocaust was "part of Alderney's history", while Lord Pickles said the subsequent lack of war trials was a "stain on the reputations of successive British governments".

The panel found this lack of justice was "intimately linked" to the prisoner-of-war breakout in Stalag Luft III - known as the Great Escape.

[...]

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On edit:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/lord-pickles-alderney-expert-review

Findings of the review that Lord Pickles commissioned into the evidence on how many prisoners died in the Channel Island of Alderney during its Nazi occupation.



https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/664cc5d2bd01f5ed32793fc4/The_Lord_Pickles-Alderney_expert_review.pdf

Lord Pickles Alderney expert review- PDF, 1.73 MB, 93 pages

[twodogsbarking]

1. I never thought we learned enough about WW2 and The Holocaust in high school.

Maybe that was the plan.

[10 Turtle Day]

2. So interesting but a little confusing

So interesting to learn that Nazis occupied one (or more?) of the British Channel Islands. Looking at a map, it was astoundingly close to London.

The article doesn’t expound much on the island’s connection to the Great Escape. Apparently, after the war, the British were so focused on holding those responsible for executing 50 of the recaptured Great Escapees, that they gave the Soviets authority to investigate war crimes at the Nazi camps on Alderney because the majority of the prisoners housed there were Soviet. The Soviets received all of the existing files on the Alderney occupation and then did not follow up with any investigation.

I’ve spent a good chunk of my morning reading all about Alderney’s occupation, the Great Escape, and the various types of Nazi camps: forced labor camps, concentration camps, death camps, transit camps, and POW camps. I’m still unclear of the distinction between the first two categories, although several articles make a point to say that among the forced labor camps in Alderney, one was a concentration camp. Can anyone further enlighten me?

I love DU for the breadth of topics posted beyond the political news. I learn so much here. Thank you for posting this, Sl8! I

[sl8]

3. It sounds like you correctly gleaned the connection to the Great Escape

I'm not sure if you got that from the review or elsewhere. Just in case, this is from the results of the review:

[...]

33. Why were none of the culprits responsible for the crimes committed in Alderney
tried in a British court after the Second World War?

The British Government handed ‘The Alderney Case’ to the USSR on 11 September 1945, via theUNWCC; and the Soviet Union decided not to follow up with it. In late July and early August 1945 the British Foreign Office decided, unilaterally, to expand its application of the principles of the Moscow Declaration, whereby a case would be tried on the basis of 'territoriality' (i.e. the place where the atrocities had been perpetrated) to 'nationality' (i.e. the nationality of the victims of the atrocities). There was a certain logic to this - Alderney had been evacuated of almost all British subjects and the large majority of the victims were Soviet citizens. The ostensible reason given for this was that Britain wanted to try the Germans responsible for the murder of 50 British servicemen ('The Great Escape') held at Stalag Luft III. By rights, the Germans should have faced a Soviet court. The hope was that in giving the USSR 'The Alderney Case' we would get the 'Stalag Luft III Case', which we did.

[...]

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/664cc5d2bd01f5ed32793fc4/The_Lord_Pickles-Alderney_expert_review.pdf

[10 Turtle Day]

4. Thanks again!

I missed this particular excerpt and apparently the review itself, but I went through so many rabbit holes in my online travels in a quest to learn more that it wasn’t a wasted effort because I did expand my knowledge of this and WWII in general.

Now I’m off to finish what I started by reading the review…

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. The Nazis occupied all of the Channel Islands

They're closer to the coast of France than Britain (a left-over from when Normandy and England were ruled by the same king). In fact, when D-Day liberated the nearby coast of Normandy, the Channel Islands were just bypassed - they weren't strategically useful, and rather than use personnel to take them, they were just isolated, and only liberated after "Victory in Europe Day" in May 1945.