Holocaust envoy launches research portal into Nazi occupation of Alderney

A dedicated history and research website detailing the Nazi occupation of Alderney is now live. 

Lord Eric Pickles, the UK’s Post Holocaust Issues Envoy, today announced the launch of www.occupiedalderney.org, an accompanying part of a review (launched on 27 July) into the number of prisoners who died on the Channel Island during the second world war.

The website will showcase cutting-edge research and in time highlight key documents currently stored in historical archives.

It will also be the place where the latest evidence on the number of people, including Jews, Spanish, Ukrainians and Russian prisoners of war who died through the Nazi policy of ‘extermination through labour’ (Vernichtung durch Arbeit) in the construction of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall, can be found.

Occupiedalderney.org contains information on prisoner biographies and the latest research on the camps, their regimes, and their histories.

Lord Pickles says the portal is part of the review’s commitment to transparency:-

“It gives a good overview of the latest published evidence and provides a further opportunity for people who have evidence to contact us. It is a work in progress with new entries planned. The website also offers an opportunity to read the latest research and documents related to the occupation of Alderney.”

Professor Caroline Sturdy-Colls & Kevin Colls MSc, Staffordshire University said: “We hope that this website will provide an important resource for anyone interested in the history of the Nazi Occupation of Alderney and the places that were connected to the forced and slave labour programme.”

“Most importantly, we hope that the website will help to increase awareness of the stories of some of the people who lived, worked, and died there between 1941 and 1945.’

Dr Gilly Carr, University of Cambridge says she is sure the website will prove to be a valuable resource: “It gives me a great deal of pleasure to see one of IHRA’s (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) recommendations for Alderney, made in 2019, come to fruition. It is enormously important that local people and visitors to Alderney, as well as researchers further afield, have reliable and peer-reviewed sources of information about the Island’s German occupation heritage.

“Nearly all information about these sites is either scattered in archives across Europe or is under the soil, accessible only through archaeology.”

Those with additional archival material and estimates of the numbers of dead are encouraged to contact ukhmfsecretariat@levellingup.gov.uk.

The website is supported by the University of Cambridge, Staffordshire University, and the UK Government.