THE UK’s Holocaust envoy, Lord Eric Pickles, has welcomed the installation of memorial stones in Jersey and across the Channel Islands to commemorate those who suffered during the Occupation.
Last month, 35 Stolpersteine, or “stumble stones”, were laid into public pavements and roadways – 20 were installed in Jersey while 15 were laid in Guernsey.
The cobblestones bear engraved brass plates with the names of victims and survivors of Nazism.
The initiative was led by Jersey Heritage’s Chris Addy and historian Gilly Carr, with support from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Over 100,000 Stolpersteine, laid by German artist Gunter Demnig, have now been installed across the European continent since the project was started in 1992.
Lord Pickles, who is also the chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, said: “The wonderful thing about Stolpersteine is the way you stumble across the stones embedded in the everyday pavements we all walk on.
“They are outside the family homes of Jews murdered during the Holocaust and in many more places where we remember the victims and the survivors of Nazism.”
He added: “It is an opportunity for us all to reflect on the importance of remembrance and to ensure that we remember our history, no matter how painful.
“Without confronting our past, we will never be able to move forward.”
Lord Pickles led a review that found the number of prisoners of war who died in Alderney during the Nazi occupation was far higher than previously thought.
The Alderney Expert Review Panel report estimated the number of victims during the German Occupation of the island from 1941-1945 to be between 641 and 1,027, compared to the 389 who were previously believed to have perished.
It concluded that successive UK governments had covered up the true extent of suffering and deaths on British soil.
But the report – which found that deaths were unlikely to have exceeded 1,134 people – found no evidence for theories that the Nazis constructed a “mini-Auschwitz” in Alderney, with Lord Pickles warning that exaggerating the number of dead “plays into the hands of Holocaust deniers and undermines the six million dead”, referring to the Jewish victims of the Nazis.
