Gilly Carr - Nazi Prisons in Britain: Political Prisoners during the German Occupation of Jersey and Guernsey, 1940–1945

Nazi Prisons in the

British Isles

Political Prisoners during the German Occupation

of Jersey and Guernsey, 19401945

Gilly Carr

Series Consultant

Nicholas J. Saunders

First published in Great Britain in 2020 by

PEN & SWORD ARCHAEOLOGY

An imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

Yorkshire - Philadelphia

Copyright Gilly Carr, 2020

ISBN 978 1 52677 093 6

eISBN 978 1 52677 094 3

Mobi ISBN 978 1 52677 095 0

The right of Gilly Carr to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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The political prisoners poem, composed in Jersey Prison

in 1943 by Joseph Tierney, one of the Jersey 21

At our hotel in Gloucester Street When we all get together,

And talk of soup thats green, and bread Thats tough as any leather.

A chum of ours chants this refrain

In every kind of weather: Any time now!

We talk in whispers low, in case

The Boche should overhear us,

We peep round every corner,

for The Guvnor might be near us,

And when we plan our getaway

We have this thought to cheer us: Any time now!

We ask When does invasion send

Our armies oer the waters?

When shall we drive the Huns right out

And free our sons and daughters?

And, all old soldiers have their fill

Of beer and ales and porters? Any time now!

How soon will profiteers be made

To walk the line and dither?

Black-marketeers in harbour mud

Be pummelled hither-thither?

And States officials all sent to Well

To play upon the zither? Any time now!

And should we say, how soon the day

Will come for our returning

And how long will it be before

The home-fires well be burning?

The answer still is just the same

It needs but little learning:

ANY TIME NOW!

The author would like to acknowledge the help of a number of people during the research for this book. In Jersey, I would like to thank most especially the staff at Jersey Heritage, Jersey Archives, the Lord Coutanche Library at the Socit Jersiaise, Jersey War Tunnels and at St Helier public library. I have also received help from several former political prisoners, including Francis Harris, who answered many letters from me in 2010, and Peter Gray, who lent me his unpublished manuscript in 2012, and which I tried to get published; it was not to be. My thanks to Micky Neil, who gave me an interview during the research for Protest, Defiance and Resistance in the Channel Islands: German Occupation 194045. He also let me view George Le Marquands diary. Pauline Hacquoil let me photograph her aunts letter; it is from her that I got Dora Hacquoils wonderful description of her cell. Barbara Greene, daughter of the indomitable Belza Turner, made contact with me more than five years after I put out a call in the Jersey Evening Post for her to get in touch. Like a note in a bottle flung into the ocean, that message eventually arrived in Toronto and she has kindly shared many documents from her mothers collection with me. Richard Ahier and Victor Webb kindly allowed me to photograph their political prisoner certificates.

I passed an idyllic Jersey summer afternoon with Paulette de la Haye (who must have the most glorious view in the Island from her back garden) while she showed me her mother and grandfathers political prisoner autograph book. Angela OConnor told me about her fathers experience as a prison warder during the Occupation, and Wendy Janvrin-Tipping generously permitted me to photograph her mother and aunts beautiful political prisoner autograph books and preserved painted egg, which readers can now see in Wendys own book, Any Day Now . I owe her my sincere thanks for allowing some of the images to be reproduced in this book. Mick Mire, son of Joe Mire, allowed me to take boxes of his fathers papers back to my hotel to read each evening I thank him for his trust in lending such precious papers. My thanks also to Brian Le Cornu, who lent me his glass slides of images of the inside of Jersey Prison, taken before it was demolished. I was able to scan these for this book. Alex Stuart from the department of Modern and Mediaeval Languages at the University of Cambridge translated the pages of the works of Claude Cahun, whose voice is so eloquent and important in understanding Jersey Prison.

In Guernsey, the staff of the Island Archives, especially Nathan Coyde and Darryl Ogier, were extremely kind and helpful, always putting up with my endless requests for further documents and permissions to see them. I would like to thank Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) for allowing me to use the images of the demolished Guernsey Prison, currently kept at the Island Archives. Susan Ilie has been my invaluable eyes and hands at the archives in Guernsey in between my research visits, helping me winkle out information and images from the archives, and many times thinking up new ways to get the information I needed. My thanks to her for also taking several photos for this book. At the Priaulx Library, Sue Laker kindly helped me find papers connected to the prison. My greatest thanks in Guernsey must go to the families who let me study and quote from their family members diaries, unpublished memoirs and letters: the families of Frank Falla, Gerald Domaille, Hubert Lanyon, Henry Marquand and Cecil Duquemin. My thanks to Bill Ozanne, for generously letting me quote from Marie Ozannes diary. Olive Frampton also kindly spoke to me on the phone almost a decade ago about her time in Guernsey Prison. In London, further research was carried out at the Imperial War Museum and The National Archives; precious gems were extracted from documents kept at these institutions, even the wartime report marked DESTROYED.

Susanne Carr kindly proofread Part I, on Jersey Prison, and I thank her for saving me from howlers. Nick Saunders, my mentor of the last decade and a half, also read through the manuscript and made suggestions. I am very grateful to him for his wonderful preface and for inviting me to publish this book in his series. Finally, I would like to thank Pat Fisher for showing me the precious papers belonging to her father, Joseph Tierney. I hope that she likes his voice at the start of this book.