Few know that the Nazi’s sucessfully invaded part of Britain in WWII. Well, more or less…
The Channel Islands, officially part of Britain, lie closer to the French mainland than to the English mainland – but they are still part of Britain.
During WWII, the British government felt these had little strategic value, and evacuated the islands allowing the Nazi’s to not only conquer them, but also to set up 4 concentration camps.
Lager Sylt was a Nazi concentration camp on Alderney, in operation between March 1943 and June 1944. Alderney has been nicknamed “the island of silence”, because little is known about what occurred there during the occupation. The rest of the island was heavily fortified, mainly through the slave labour of the camp inmates. The German officer left in charge of the facilities, Commandant Oberst Schwalm, burned the camps to the ground and destroyed all records connected with their use before the island was liberated by British forces on 16 May 1945.
Sadly, between the years and a wish to disasociate with the past, history is being forgotten. There are no formal comemoration of the camps, those that were imprisoned there and those that died there.
That said, something survives… amongst the rubble, there are bits and pieces still intact. For example, “the odeon” (as it’s known locally) is the remainder of a large-gun emplacement. Similar, other bunkers and fortifications remain.
Time to do some exploring! Now…. where did I leave my hard hat?