Jersey Heritage digital access manager HARRY LE FEUVRE tells the extraordinary true story of a seemingly ordinary envelope
AS Jersey recently marked the 80th anniversary of the Liberation – reflecting on stories of resilience, quiet courage and resistance during the Occupation – it seems fitting to share the remarkable tale behind a document that holds layers of hidden defiance and offers an insight into the extraordinary life of a woman who survived in the shadows of wartime Jersey.
First day cover
The envelope is, technically speaking, a first day cover: a collectible featuring newly issued postage stamps, postmarked on the first day that those stamps officially went on sale. It is an envelope for a registered letter and is striking not only for bearing six of the first postage stamps issued by the German authorities during the Occupation, but also for the identity of the envelope’s recipient.
The stamps
Commissioned by the Bailiff on behalf of the German authorities, and designed by Major Norman Rybot, these 1d. red stamps were printed by the Evening Post on 17 March 1941 and officially issued on 1 April. To the German authorities, these new local stamps, modelled on designs already approved for use in Guernsey, were a practical necessity, issued due to a shortage of British stamps in the Island. But for Rybot, the stamps were a small yet powerful gesture of defiance.
The stamps are notable for their embedded, and secret, message of resistance. The four corners of each stamp contain a tiny letter “A”, a symbol Rybot later revealed stood for the Latin phrase “Ad Avernum Adolfe Atrox” (To Hell with you, Atrocious Adolf).
A second issue of green ½d stamps, released on 29 January 1942, featured a similar secret message: “AA” – “Atrocious Adolf” – in the top corners, and “BB” – “Bloody Benito”, a jab at Mussolini – in the bottom corners.
The envelope is also marked with three Jersey postmarks dated 1 April 1941 and carries a registered mail label numbered 0007. While the story behind the stamps is interesting, what elevates it from being a philatelic collector’s item to an object of archival significance is the intended recipient of the envelope.
Hedy Bercu
The envelope bears the name and address: “Miss Hedy Bercu, 28, New Street, St. Helier, Jersey. C.I.” Within two years, Hedy would disappear from public view, initially presumed dead and later believed by the authorities to have fled Jersey. In truth, she had gone into hiding – sheltered by courageous Islanders – and would survive the Occupation under extraordinary circumstances.
Hedwig “Hedy” Bercu was born in Vienna, Austria, on 23 June 1919 into a Jewish family. In the face of rising antisemitism and the increasing threat of Nazi persecution, she left Austria in 1938, arriving in Jersey that November to take up work as a cook. Her passport, issued in Vienna just two months earlier in the name of Hedwig Bercu-Goldenberg, was the document that allowed her safe entry.
Like all non-British immigrants, upon her arrival in Jersey, Hedy had to register with the Office of Immigration under the Aliens Restriction Act, introduced in 1920. A card was created for each “alien”, detailing personal information, a record of that person’s movements in and out of Jersey, and a photograph.
Hedy’s card, of which only a microfilmed copy survives, records her arrival in Jersey on 15 November 1938 with the condition that she remain no longer than nine months. Hedy’s first listed address was Elizabeth House, Belmont Road. Over the following year, she moved through several households, including stays at Mahara, Upper King’s Cliff, and Broadlands in Grouville. A 1939 note records her brief trip to London to visit the American Embassy.
Jewish background
By the time the German military forces occupied Jersey in July 1940, Hedy was living at 28, New Street, St Helier – the address marked on the newly accessioned envelope. She remained there throughout the first years of the Occupation. In October 1940, she registered as Jewish under the First Order of the German Regulations against the Jews, and her identity card was marked with a red “J”.
A note in the official records, written by Chief Aliens Officer Clifford Orange, records Hedy’s attempt to distance herself from her Jewish background. She claimed to be the illegitimate daughter of a Protestant woman who had later married a Romanian Jew.
Remarkably, despite registering as Jewish, Hedy found work within the transport department of the German authorities, where her knowledge of German made her a useful interpreter. In this role, she had access to petrol coupons, a valuable resource in wartime Jersey. According to testimonies, she used these to help local doctors continue to visit their patients. This decision, and her employment with the Germans, put her in grave danger.
Disappearance
On 4 November 1943, after being accused of smuggling petrol coupons, Hedy made a desperate decision. Facing arrest, she faked her own suicide and vanished. In the weeks that followed, the German authorities placed a notice in the Evening Post asking for information about her whereabouts. The notice warned: “Anyone concealing Miss Bercu or aiding her in any other manner makes himself liable to punishment.”
Her photo – taken from her Alien’s Registration card – was published alongside the appeal for information, and she was listed as living at “West Park, 1 Canon Tower” – a mistaken but near-correct reference to Cannon Tower on Peirson Road.
Hedy did not escape to France, which a 1944 note on her Alien’s card indicated was the belief of the German police. She was hidden in Jersey, aided first by Bozena Kotyzova, a Czech national, and then by Dorothea Weber, née Le Brocq, a Jersey woman married to an Austrian baker. From late 1943 until Liberation, Hedy lived in secret in Dorothea’s house at 7, West Park Avenue, dependent on the courage of those who chose to shelter her.
Extraordinary risks were taken to keep her alive. Dorothea’s husband, Anton Weber, had been drafted into the German army in 1942 and was away from the Island for much of the period. Dorothea concealed Hedy’s presence in her home and was helped by a surprising ally: a German soldier named Kurt Rümmele, who was in a relationship with Hedy and brought her food during her time in hiding.
In August 1944, the German authorities increased their efforts to locate missing persons and escapees. A list of 18 individuals, including Hedy, was circulated to the local police. Hedy remained hidden throughout the duration of the war.
Liberation and aftermath
On 14 May 1945 – just five days after Liberation – Hedy Bercu reported to the Aliens Office. She had survived 18 months in hiding. A note on her Registration card records her reappearance and confirms her address for the final months of the Occupation as 7, West Park Avenue. She later moved to Green Banks in St Saviour and, by February 1946, was living at La Ferrière. During this period, she worked in domestic service, employed first by Mrs H Mitchell, and later as a children’s nurse by Mrs Scott-Dalgleish.
In early 1947, Hedy left Jersey to live in England near the prisoner-of-war camp where her partner, Kurt Rümmele, was interned following Liberation. They were married in 1949, and Hedy converted to Protestantism. They had three children and moved to Germany after his release. After Kurt died following a surgical operation in 1956, aged just 38, Hedy remained in Germany to raise their children.
Dorothea Weber’s bravery in sheltering Hedy was formally recognised decades later. In 2016, she was named Righteous Among the Nations in an official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. In 2018, she was honoured as a British Hero of the Holocaust.
More stories still to tell?
This newly accessioned envelope serves as a tangible reminder of a woman whose life and choices defied the odds. It also embodies the hidden layers of resistance that existed within everyday objects – in this case, a set of stamps designed to appear innocuous to the occupiers, but which carried a covert message of rebellion.
The phrase “Ad Avernum Adolfe Atrox” (To Hell with you, Atrocious Adolf) was Rybot’s private protest. But it gains new resonance when paired with Hedy’s story: that of a Jewish refugee, who fled one Nazi regime only to face another, who found herself living under Occupation, working amid the enemy, and ultimately surviving with the help of those who saw the difference between right and wrong.
When the envelope arrived at Jersey Archive, it contained no letter inside. This absence adds a layer of mystery and invites further questions. What was once enclosed within? An innocuous note, official correspondence from the authorities, or was it simply meant to be kept as an item of philatelic interest?
What we do know is that this seemingly ordinary envelope is a tangible link to a woman at the heart of one of the most enduring stories of courage and resistance, and of another Islander’s lesser-known symbolic act of personal resistance against the occupying forces.
*This special envelope and the documents relating to Hedy Bercu’s story are available to view at Jersey Archive and on the Jersey Heritage Online catalogue at catalogue.jerseyheritage.org/
