Trip organiser Angela Francey (66), who has been involved in running annual ceremonies and events linking Jersey with Bad Wurzach for three decades, says this year’s visit will be the last official trip that is organised for the group, as many members are now in their 80s.
- Bad Wurzach is a small town in southern Germany and is part of the Ravensburg district.
- The towns castle Schloss Bad Wurzach was used to detain Channel Islanders during the Occupation.
- In 1950 the town was given the prefix Bad, indicating that there was a therapeutic bath house there.
- After the development of the towns urban spa service in 1948 Bad Wurzach became known as a major health resort within the region.
- It has thermal spas, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, hiking trails, several sports grounds and a petting zoo.
- It covers an area of just over 70 square miles and has a population of 14,167.
There are still several spaces left for former internees to travel with the group, who are due to leave Jersey on 25 April and return on 29 April.
However, Mrs Francey said that since airline Blue Islands announced that they were to stop a route previously favoured by the group, organising the journey had become ‘a struggle’.
She said that it was important to take a direct route to make the journey as easy as possible for the elderly members of the trip, who will be joined by the Bailiff, William Bailhache, and the Chief Minister, Ian Gorst.
Previous trips have involved a flight to Zurich and a three-hour drive to Bad Wurzach, but Mrs Francey is now attempting to organise a direct flight to Friedrichshafen, which is close to Bad Wurzach.
Mrs Francey said: ‘I got in touch with the Ports of Jersey directors and they offered to help, but it took six weeks and up to 40 emails to find out at what stage we are at.
‘At the moment an airline has said it will charter an aircraft for us to Friedrichshafen.
‘In the meantime, while all this was going on, I got in touch with Bellingham Travel and within two days they had found another charter plane which might be flying us.
‘Normally I would have this all done and dusted by now. But we will definitely get these people to Germany.
‘It’s been a struggle. I don’t think people appreciate how important this is.’
Anybody wishing to join the Bad Wurzach trip can contact Mrs Francey by emailing angie.francey@yahoo.co.uk or by calling her on 07797 795911.
JERSEY’S unique connection with Bad Wurzach began during the Second World War when 618 men, women and children were removed from the Island and moved to the German town.
They became internees of the camp as they were UK born or had UK-born parents and over the course of the war more than 2,000 Channel Islanders were detained in Germany for nearly three years.
Those in Bad Wurzach, where supplies were scarce, were liberated on 28 April 1945. Guernsey internees, who were kept in the nearby camp of Biberach, were freed a few days earlier on 23 April of the same year.
In the years that followed a group of Islanders including former internees began to return to Bad Wurzach each year in celebration of their liberation.
They forged ties with the region and after forming the St Helier Bad Wurzach Twinning Association Jersey’s capital and the small German spa town were linked in 2002.
Formal yearly trips were organised and often saw the Bailiff, religious leaders and senior politicians join the trips to the region at the end of April.
However, it is likely that this year’s trip will be the last group journey for many of the former internees who agreed that the 70th anniversary visit would mark their final return to Bad Wurzach.
IN the winter months after the war Bad Wurzach may have been a picturesque, snow-covered spa German spa town.
But for the men, women and children from the Channel Islands interned there during the Second World War it was a prison.
Cold, damp and surrounded by barbed wire, internees were kept in dorms at Schloss Bad Wurzach – the castle in the town.
Provisions were scarce, but former internees recall that local women and children were friendly towards the group and would pass chocolate, bread, fruit and sweets through gaps in the fence that separated the Channel Islanders from the German community.
Local traders also took pity on those who were imprisoned and would also pass on goods and food when they could.
At Christmas adults and artists in the group would create cards and gifts from whatever they had to hand for the children who were being held.
Red Cross parcels also helped internees remain hopeful and internees have previously recalled how guards would allow them to put up Christmas trees and hold parties for the children.
Shows were also put on to pass the time. One of the internment camp’s detainees was a professional producer from London who co-ordinated productions of Cinderella and Aladdin using specially made crêpe paper costumes with material left over from Red Cross parcels.
After the war many of the families from Jersey who had become friendly with families in Bad Wurzach kept in touch, which led to the formation of the St Helier Bad Wurzach Twinning Association.
