A SPECIAL screening will be taking place at the Jersey Arts Centre this week.
Held on Friday 24 October, Ghosts of Alderney – Hitler’s Island Slaves is a feature-length documentary film, directed and co-produced by Andrew Johnstone, and telling the largely untold story of atrocities committed by the Nazis on British soil during the Second World War.
The film focuses on Piers Secunda, who has uncovered shocking new evidence of the slave workers from across Europe who were shipped into the island of Alderney in order to build a fortress for Hitler. A visual artist and sculptor, Piers has produced work documenting the destruction of culture in Afghanistan, Iraq, the USA and Alderney, and has work in the collections of the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
Discussing those who lost their lives in Alderney during the war (a recent UK government inquiry found that more than 1,100 people died in the island), Piers said: “The academic research deals with lists of names and adding up numbers to create a total figure of numbers of people who came to Alderney. But people aren’t numbers. They’re human beings. They have lives, they have histories and backgrounds.” Ghosts of Alderney – Hitler’s Island Slaves seeks to put names and faces to those who died.
The film has been produced by British independent film company, Wild Dog, and the screening on Friday will be followed by a Q&A with the team behind the production.
Discussing some of the individuals to whom the filmmakers spoke in the course of making the film, Andrew Johnstone said: “We meet the families of several Alderney survivors and we hear from them untold stories of Nazi brutality on the island.
“One of the stories we feature is that of former Jersey resident Francisco Font who was taken to the island as a slave worker in 1943. We meet his son, Gary Font, who lives on Jersey. Gary has opened up his family archive for us.
“We also meet two Dutch sisters who tell us that their father remembers that when the Nazi guards were bored, they would pick out 12 to 15 prisoners, tie them to the small railway wagons and use them for target practice. A shocking account of war crimes.
“The film also documents some of Piers’ original forensic research that involved ballistics tests by NYPD experts in New York.”
There will be a more in-depth interview with Andrew Johnstone about Ghosts of Alderney – Hitler’s Island Slaves in the JEP next weekend.
*Ghosts of Alderney – Hitler’s Island Slaves is being screened as a collaboration between the 13th Parish Film Festival and the Jersey Arts Centre. For more details, or to book tickets, visit artscentre.je. A full interview with Andrew Johnstone will appear in this Saturday’s JEP.
Uncovering the horrifying hidden history of Alderney
