Legacies of Occupation

This book explores the way in which the legacy of the German occupation of the Channel Islands has been turned into heritage (or, conversely, neglected) over the last 70 years. Once seen as the ‘taint of the mark of the beast’, the perception of much of what the Germans left behind has slowly changed from being despised and reviled, buried underground or dumped at sea, to being reclaimed, restored, highly valued and treated as ‘heritage’. This book examines the journey of various aspects of this heritage, exploring the role of each post-war generation in picking at the scar of occupation, refusing to let it heal or fade. By discovering and interpreting anew their once-hated legacy, each generation of Channel Islanders has changed the resulting collective memory of a period which is rapidly moving to the edge of living memory. It includes the first in-depth investigation into the multiple aspects of heritage of occupation of a single place and will offer comparative material for other heritage professionals who work with similar material throughout Europe and in other post-occupation areas. It will explore the complex ethical issues faced by anyone who works with the legacy or heritage of Nazism, seeking to understand how and why the Channel Islands have responded in the way that they have and asking how unique – or typical for formerly-occupied Europe - their response has been.

Dr. Gilly Carr is a Senior Lecturer and Academic Director in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge’s Institute of Continuing Education. She is also a Fellow and Director of Studies in Archaeology and Anthropology at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. She has published widely on the subject of the heritage of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands and her subsequent volume, Protest, Defiance and Resistance in the Channel Islands, 1940-1945, co-written with Paul Sanders and Louise Willmot will be published in 2014. She recently curated Occupied Behind Barbed Wire, an exhibition on the arts and crafts made by the 2,200 Channel Islanders interned in Germany during the war, for Guernsey Museum (2010) and Jersey Museum (2012). She co-edited with Harold Mytum, The Cultural Heritage of POWs: Creativity Behind Barbed Wire and POW Archaeology. Her most recent publication is "Islands of War, Islands of Memory, which she is co-editing with Keir Reeves.