大象传媒

These stories were submitted to the People War鈥檚 site by Jane Van de Ban of CSV Media on behalf of Maurien Osborne and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Having to leave Jersey for Germany
I was born in Jersey, and at the start of the war and the occupation, was a small child living there with my parents and younger brother.

My mother was Jersey born, but my father
was born in Wales, of Welsh parents.

My father as a young man,and seeking work, decided to leave Wales for Jersey, where his younger sister was living, and had suggested to him to do likewise, which he did.

He found work, meet my mother,they courted, and married,and had two young children by the time the war started,and the occupation
of the Channel Islands by the invading Germans.

I was around nine years old when my family
were given notice, by the Germans, for our deportation to Germany, the reason for this
notice being served on us, was because my father was English.

The Germans where interning all non Jersey
subjects,for interment in camps, to Germany.
The orders that were given,were to be packed, and ready to leave, with one small suitcase each, and to have warm clothing with us. We were given the date for departure, with the time to be down at the St. Helier harbour for embarkation, and to be shipped out,for the start of our journey to Germany, and into the unknown.

The memory of saying goodbye to family, and friends, before boarding onto cargo boats,
will stay with me for ever, even now, after
sixty years on, I find it very upsetting,
bringing tears to my eyes.

It was a most distressing time, as none of us had any idea what was going to happen to us, and would we ever, ever see each other again.
It was one of the most awful nights ever, sailing away from Jersey, our life that had been, and our homes.

The boat journey wasn't a very good experience, with the noise of the engines, and the smell of sardines, and sea sickness, made it very difficult to sleep.

The sardine smell had lingered, owing to the fact, we had been given sardine sandwiches to eat, with what ever other food,and at the same time feeling very fearful, because of not knowing what was going to become of us.
After travelling through the night, we arrived in France, and started on our train
journey to Germany from St. Malo, until we reached our destination, the Biberach camp.
This camp site, which we were to inhabit for the next few weeks, comprised of rows, and rows of wooden huts, barracks, nissan huts, surrounded by barbed wire.

We were altogether in this camp, but my father, with the other men, where separated
from their families, and only had certain times of the day for visiting them in the women's quarters.

Quite soon after our arrival at Biberach, we were photographed, these family pictures
I have including with my story, they are over sixty years old, showing us as we were then,and obviously held in files at the camp, some form of identification as to who we were, did our files follow us on to Wurzach, I'm wondering as I write this.

After a few weeks stay at Biberach, we were
moved from there, to another part of Germany
and another camp, the camp called Wurzach.

The journey and the train to Wurzach was quite different to the one we had taken from St. Malo, on this train we were shut in
behind large doors, standing closely together, and unable to view the scenery as we passed by.

Eventually we arrived, at the nearest points
to camp, alighted, and with the German guards started our long walk to the camp, which at the time seemed a very long way away.
Eventually, arriving at the camp, we were
allocated our rooms, our room was on the ground floor, No 17, which house between 25 and more people, women, and children.
The men were in another wing of the building, again separated from their family,
with times for visiting.

My father, who was a chef, was given the job as a cook for the camp, which he did for all the time we were there, and other people who had done other work where given a similar job, like a doctor, would work as one the camp's doctors.

We had our own people in authority, but all orders came to them from the Germans, the camp Commandant.

The camp was ringed by high barbed wire, which separated us from a Hitler Youth camp om the other side, we were guarded night and day by the Germans guards.

We had some schooling, but not like what we had been used to, the school classes where held in the dungeons of this building, which was a German castle, that we were interned in, it also housed the showers down there.
We, as children, made our own friends, and created our own fun, doing things that we had never done before, life was so very
different.

We were taken from Biberack by train, and then we had a long, long walk to the next camp, Wurzack. We were there two years, nine months. Sons were sent away to another place at 16 above Laufin, but my parents were together but in separate parts of the camp. And the fathers could visit at certain times.

Life in the camps

It was my mother, me and my brother, and we were in a very large room containing lots and lots of families, most of whom were from the Channel Islands. Other people, Jewish people, were sent there later on. We were prisoners, but we knew they were far worse off than us, so we took them our soup. They were in such a bad, bad way.

We knew the guards, who would let us out the fence to pick flowers. And we knew the guards who we wouldn鈥檛 ask at all.

We didn鈥檛 have much schooling. We used to be taught in the dungeons, because it was a big mansion. (I gather the murals are absolutely amazing. It鈥檚 a hotel now. It鈥檚 lovely.)

I eventually got back to Jersey when I was 12 years old.

Liberation

We were liberated by the French. (The French came first, and then the Americans.) And they didn鈥檛 know we were there; they didn鈥檛 know there was a camp there. The people running the camp had prepared the dungeons, but the people in charge went with someone in the village with a white flag to meet the troops. And they had their guns on them, because they didn鈥檛 know it was a POW camp.

It was only when the Germans and the head of the village came with the white flags appeared that they realised. So they came and opened the gates, and we all went out. It was amazing. We just went. I think the camp was empty.

But it was very dangerous. You just couldn鈥檛 go off, because you knew they were hunting people down. So they brought in conditions.

Our barbed wire: we were one side, and the Hitler youth camp was just over the wire. We knew what they were, but we felt sorry for them. We felt we were better off.

We had a ballroom, a theatre. And when we were liberated, the authorities would hold dances. But the Americans and the French didn鈥檛 get on, so they had to be separate. I remember the Americans coming in for their dancing and having a wonderful time. And also being out with the French soldiers as well: our parents didn鈥檛 know, but we used to pinch their hats and get them to chase us.

After the liberation, we were driven by trucks by the Americans to a big airport until they flew us back to a centre in Paddington. We were one of the last to stay, because we couldn鈥檛 get back to Jersey. And we had to find a relative in England. My father being Welsh, we went and stayed with his sister in Wales. I went to school in Wales, so obviously it was some time before we got back to Jersey.

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