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Liz Barrett interviewed by Becky Kendall at the Guille-Alles Library 5/2/2005. Recording transcribed by John David.
Liz Barret was seven when the Island was occupied.

I………. Talking about your experience when a German soldier took you back to your old house, was it very much a feeling that it was us, the Guernsey people, and them, the Germans, or was there some interaction?
When they took us there, it’s difficult to remember that, because I suppose I was only eight or nine, but I think we were quite pleased to be taken in to see the house by this nice man, he was charming, as we can remember.
I………. Was there any fear? Fear of the German soldiers?
Certainly no fear of him. But I can remember, we would be going around in a little gang, my brother and sister and our friends, you say five or six of us trawling around the place, we did have bikes, but we’d walk around the lanes, and we stopped at the top of the rue Sauvage, and there were some Germans — because they’d give us sweets, we used to hang over the fence as well, at my parent’s house, we ‘d hang over the fence like this “Bon-bons, bitte, chocolat, banans — because they’d give us dried bananas sometimes — until they couldn’t stand us and then they’d give us some stuff and then we’d go, you see, we’d have to hang around for quite a time until we got something, but it was only because we wanted sweets as much as anything else. I don’t say we were starving, even then. This particular day we came up the rue Sauvage, there were two or three Germans sitting on the wall opposite the house that they’d come from, and they’d talk to us, and they were probably eighteen or something quite young, and so, looking back, they were only young boys really, weren’t they? But they were talking to us, and one of them got a camera and took photographs of us, and a few years ago there was a photograph in the newspaper, the Guernsey Press, saying who are these people, and it was us, that was the day they took that photograph, and he was over here, in Guernsey, and he was staying at one of the hotels up Hauteville, and there were a few people, and they were people that hadn’t had anything to do with it really, and I said, I’ll phone you tomorrow, and I’ll pick you up, and you can come and meet my brother and my father, so I did pick him up the next day, very nice man, and I do send him a Christmas Card, he’s married with a family.
I………. Don’t you find that slightly odd, to be friends fifty-odd years later with somebody that was actually sent here to control the community?
But he was only just a young lad, when you think about it, I think he told me he was either eighteen or nineteen when he came over to Guernsey.
I………. Was there any time that he felt that he ought to apologise to people? Not that he was doing anything wrong, he was just doing his job, but…
No, I didn’t get that impression, he was really pleased to be back in Guernsey, and to see Guernsey, and I did show him a little bit of Guernsey, but didn’t have much time, because he was going that day, I think. And then we were friendly with a German soldier who used to go to Salem Chapel, he used to sit at the back, and one day my father went — because if they’re Christians they’re Christians, it doesn’t matter where they come from — so he went along, shook hands, you know, and dad invited him back home one day — because we used to go to Church in the afternoon, because there was no light, you couldn’t have any lights on — he used to come to our house, we had nothing to offer him, and my father used to hide the crystal set and all that kind of stuff, you know, it was always hidden, anyway, we’d offer him horrible tea that we had from blackberries or whatever, if there was some food he’d have some, but very often there wasn’t any, but we did go to see him after the war, and his daughter still comes here on holiday, ever since she’s been coming.

[see also "The Germans evict a family from their house in Guernsey"]

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