It was always assumed that Australian Peter Bruce Johnson died in Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in Germany, after being deported from Jersey. His name – and the rest of the 21 who died in German camps and prisons – is commemorated on the Lighthouse Memorial on the New North Quay.
But Dr Carr said knowledge of Peter Johnson stemmed only from the memory of a local historian, the late Joe Mière, who met a man he said was called Johnson during the German Occupation.
According to Dr Carr – a senior lecturer in archaeology at Cambridge University who specialises in the Occupation of the Channel Islands – no historical record of any sort has ever been found for anyone with the name Peter Johnson.
‘Mr Mière must have remembered Johnson’s name incorrectly,’ Dr Carr said. ‘No person of that name had a Jersey registration card and no person of that name has a record in the International Tracing Service.
‘It seems extremely likely that the real identity of Peter Johnson of the Jersey 21 has been uncovered under a different name. If so, this man survived the war.’
She said the man Mr Mière identified as Peter Johnson was more likely to have been Thomas Patrick Nelson – an Australian who was deported from Jersey for theft during the Occupation – after identifying what she deemed uncanny similarities in Nelson’s life story. Mr Nelson is not listed among the 21.
Dr Carr said: ‘Last week I was contacted by the granddaughter of Australian Thomas Patrick Nelson. Her family records show Nelson was living under an alias – his real name was Thomas John Nanson. After getting in trouble with the law on several occasions during the 1930s, he came to Jersey under a new name and place of birth. Like Peter Johnson he was also deaf.’
Dr Carr said there were many other similarities between the two, including distinguishing marks on their hands. ‘[Peter Johnson] had an accident at work and seriously damaged his hand.
‘Nelson-Nanson’s job at the time of his deportation was, like Peter Johnson, sawing timber. Nanson’s prison records from Fort de Villeneuve Saint-Georges Prison, on the outskirts of Paris, record his distinguishing marks in 1944 as having multiple marks of an unidentified kind on his hands and forearms.
‘Nanson-Nelson was deported from Jersey with a five-month sentence in March 1944 – incidentally, the same year that Peter Johnson was supposed to have been deported. So both men were Australian, both men were deaf and sawed timber for a living.’
She added that their ‘two stories are too close to be coincidence’.
The only major difference in the stories, according to Dr Carr, is that ‘Nanson was fortunate enough to still be in Villeneuve at the time of its liberation by American forces’.
The 21 Islanders are commemorated every year in a ceremony held on 27 January – Holocaust Memorial Day.
Doug Ford, chairman of Jersey’s Holocaust Memorial Day Committee, which organises the annual ceremony, said the committee disagreed with Dr Carr’s view. He said: ‘The crucial thing is Joe described Peter Johnson as having nine fingers, but Nelson had ten. I don’t think there’s enough evidence to update the list of the 21.’
*If readers have any memories or family stories of Peter Johnson or Thomas Nelson, they can contact Dr Carr on gcc20@cam.ac.uk.
