Jewish groups in Alderney have been left dismayed by the local authority’s denial of permission, for a second time, for a memorial plaque to Holocaust victims to be erected on the Channel island.
The application, submitted by three organisations including the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe and JTrails, sought permission to install a plaque at Longis Common, a site associated with burials of forced labourers and other victims of the Nazi occupation during the Second World War.
The proposed inscription would have commemorated those who died on the island between 1941 and 1945, specifically acknowledging Jewish victims who are believed to remain buried at the site.
Rabbi Herschel Gluck, of the Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe, said he was “very surprised and deeply shocked” by the decision to refuse a plaque.
“As a child of Holocaust survivors, I am deeply aware of the profound need for those who were dehumanised during their lives to be provided with the dignity of appropriate memory in death,” he told the Guernsey Press. “Failing this, it feels like a double and continuing abuse.”
Alderney’s General Services Committee rejected the proposal after receiving advice from the island’s Policy and Finance Committee, which recommended refusal by a majority. Among the reasons cited was the absence of what it described as “official proof of a mass burial site on the island”.
The application included revised wording following an earlier proposal and also sought permission to place a stone beneath the plaque commemorating the late Graham McKinley, a former member of the States, Guernsey’s parliament, who had supported efforts to establish a memorial.
The proposed inscription read: “This plaque is dedicated to the memory of the unknown souls who perished on this island between 1941 and 1945 during the Nazi Occupation of Alderney, including Jews who still rest at this site.
“The plaque also stands in remembrance of all victims of Nazism, who rest not only here but in other places unknown upon Alderney.”
The dispute comes against a backdrop of longstanding disagreement over the scale of Nazi atrocities on Alderney, the location of burial sites and how the island’s wartime history should be commemorated.
Marcus Roberts, director of JTrails, accused the authorities of positioning themselves as arbiters of Holocaust history rather than engaging with the Jewish organisations seeking a memorial.
“The refusal of the States and its advisers presents a neat Holocaust inversion,” he said.
“They now present themselves as the real guardians of the truth about the Holocaust. They effectively pit themselves against the Jewish community, whom they say are making up a version of their own history.”
Roberts said the organisations were seeking recognition for victims and a meaningful discussion with the island’s authorities, rather than attempting to impose a particular interpretation of events.
“All we have asked is that the States fulfil its commitments as signatories of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance Charter and also honour its previous public statements that victims remain on Longis Common and that they should be appropriately honoured and marked, as well as to enter into a genuine dialogue with us to resolve matters,” he said.
He also accused the authorities of attempting to determine which members of the Jewish community could be commemorated and how such remembrance should take place.
Alderney was occupied by Nazi Germany from 1940 until its liberation in 1945, and German forces established camps there in which prisoners and forced labourers endured brutal conditions.
Dr Gilly Carr, a professor specialising in Holocaust heritage who participated in a recent expert review of events on Alderney during the Occupation, has previously criticised Roberts for exaggerating the number of deaths at Nazi camps on the island.
Nevertheless, the precise number of people who died on the island, and the circumstances and locations of their deaths, continue to be subjects of historical investigation and dispute.
To get more news, click here to sign up for our free daily newsletter.