The owner of this website, Dr Gilly Carr, has worked with the Holocaust Educational Trust, the UK’s provider of Holocaust education, to create a special teaching pack using stories taken from this website. This teaching pack will be primarily for use in Channel Islands schools, but will also be freely available for UK schools to use as well.
The teaching packs present a summary of a selection of stories from deported people from Guernsey and Jersey, and each story comes with associated questions for debate and consideration in the classroom. These encourage pupils to think about choices made during the German occupation of the Channel Islands and how they might have responded in a similar position. Pupils will also be encouraged to think about consequences of actions, bravery, and standing up to Nazism.
In the school year beginning in the autumn of 2018, the teaching packs will be used in schools for the first time. Teacher training workshops were run in September 2018 and the videos made of sessions are available at the bottom of the page. Please note that the video about Alderney is now outdated and has been superseded by both the publication of ‘Adolf Island’ by Caroline Sturdy Colls & Kevin Colls, and the Lord Pickles Alderney Expert Review of 2024.
The 12 case studies of the teaching pack (available as downloadable PDFs) are below. These combine both Jewish case studies and those of other victims of Nazism, specifically the political prisoners (resisters) deported for acts of protest, defiance and resistance. Each case study is accompanied by questions for discussion in the classroom. Notes for teachers are also provided to help with classroom discussions. Teachers will also find useful a publication by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) on Recommendations for Teaching and Learning about the Holocaust.
The Jewish experience in the Channel Islands during the German Occupation (overview)
Therese Steiner (case study of a non-British Jew deported from Guernsey)
Esther Pauline Lloyd (case study of a British Jew deported from Jersey)
Hedwig ‘Hedy Bercu’ Goldenberg (case study of a non-British Jew hiding in Jersey)
John Max Finkelstein (case study of a non-British Jew and Holocaust survivor deported from Jersey)
Miriam Jay (case study of a British Jew in Guernsey who avoided detection)
Lucy Schwob (case study of a French Jew in Jersey who avoided detection and was also a political prisoner)
Elisabet Duquemin (her story told by her daughter, Janet de Santos; case study of an Austrian Jew who came to Guernsey in 1937 and married a local man). This article is from In Living Memory edited by Olympia McEwan, published by Blue Ormer and is reproduced courtesy of Steve Foote.
Notes for Teachers on the questions for discussion (the Jewish experience).
The political prisoner experience in the Channel Islands during the German Occupation (overview)
Frank Falla (case study of a man who worked on an underground newspaper and was deported from Guernsey)
Frank Tuck (case study of a policeman deported from Guernsey who survived many prisons and camps)
Harold Le Druillenec (case study of a resister deported from Jersey who survived Bergen-Belsen)
Clifford Cohu (case study of a man deported from Jersey for spreading the news and who died in a labour camp)
Stanley Green (case study of a man deported from Jersey deported for resistance activities)
Marie Ozanne (case study of a woman imprisoned in Guernsey for standing up for victims of Nazism)
Notes for Teachers (political prisoner experience) on the questions for discussion (the political prisoner experience).
Lesson ideas: A growing resource. Please submit your lesson ideas to us and we’ll upload them to the website to create a great shared resource for all teachers.
Recommended reading:
Carr, G. On British Soil: Nazi Persecution in the Channel Islands. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Publications. [Available in Channel Islands bookshops and through the author].
Carr, G., Sanders, P. and Willmot, L. 2014. Protest, Defiance and Resistance in the Channel Islands: German Occupation 1940-1945. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Cohen, F. 2000. The Jews in the Channel Islands during the German Occupation 1940-1945. Jersey: Jersey Heritage.
For teachers interested in the pedagogy of Holocaust Education, the Frank Falla Archive recommends both the website of the Holocaust Educational Trust, which has age-appropriate materials for different stages of the curriculum, and also the very readable volume:
Cowan, P. and Maitles, H. 2017. Understanding and Teaching Holocaust Education. Sage.
Teacher training videos on a variety of subjects concerning the Holocaust, Nazi persecution and the Channel Islands are provided below:
The role of the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET)
Martin Winstone from the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) explains the role and remit of the organisation. HET organises a ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ programme and provides Holocaust Education to school children in the United Kingdom. It also has an outreach programme with Holocaust survivors, and provides teacher training supplemented by website resources.
Should every young person learn about the Holocaust?
Martin Winstone from the Holocaust Education Trust explores the notion that every young person should learn about the Holocaust and the lessons it teaches us today.
What was the Holocaust?
Martin Winstone from the Holocaust Educational Trust defines the Holocaust and explores the various victim groups who were and were not included within this term. He also looks at why various victim groups were targeted.
Holocaust education pedagogy
In this video, Martin Winstone from the Holocaust Educational Trust talks about the available pedagogical guidance for teaching such a sensitive and complex subject as the Holocaust. He considers what constitutes good practice.
A guide to using HET teaching resources
Martin Winstone explores HET teaching resources and guides, available from the HET website (het.org.uk), and applicable to various school subjects. He also recommends works of Holocaust fiction.
Dilemmas, choices and responses to the Holocaust
Martin Winstone presents teaching materials from the website of the Holocaust Educational Trust which involve ‘reading’ a photograph and thinking about the categories of victims, perpetrators and bystanders. We think about the dilemmas, choices and responses to the Holocaust made by ordinary people.
Introduction to the Frank Falla Archive website
Dr Gilly Carr of Cambridge University introduces the Frank Falla Archive, a website constructed for Channel Islands teachers, which tells the story of all Channel Islanders deported to Nazi prisons and concentration camps (frankfallaarchive.org).
The Holocaust, the Channel Islands and the Jewish experience Part 1
Dr Gilly Carr explores the Holocaust as it pertains to the Channel Islands. She considers the experiences of Jews in the Channel Islands during the Occupation, and gives several case studies, especially that of Hedwig Bercu.
The Holocaust, the Channel Islands and Jewish experience Part 2
Dr Gilly Carr gives more case studies of the Jewish experience, including the stories of Esther Pauline Lloyd, John Max Finkelstein, Miriam Jay, Marianne Grunfeld, Therese Steiner, Auguste Spitz, and Lucy Schwob.
The Frank Falla Archive educational materials
Dr Gilly Carr introduces the educational materials on the Frank Falla Archive (frankfallaarchive.org). These comprise background information on the Jewish experience, case studies, and questions to discuss in class. There is also background information about the political prisoners, case studies, and questions to discuss in class.
The Political Prisoner experience in the Channel Islands
In this video, Dr Gilly Carr from Cambridge University discusses the political prisoners in the Channel Islands. The lecture gives definitions, discusses types of resistance and the types of offences that led to imprisonment, and presents a number of case studies.
The Organisation Todt in the Channel Islands
In this video, Dr Gilly Carr from Cambridge University discusses the work of the Organisation Todt in Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney. This lecture discusses the workforce and their labour camps, and considers some of the results that have emerged from recent archaeological fieldwork. Please note that this lecture was recorded in 2018; this was before the publication of Caroline Sturdy Colls and Kevin Colls' 2022 book 'Adolf Island' and before the Lord Pickles Alderney Expert Review of 2024; both of these pushed forwards the state of knowledge about what happened in Alderney. This particular video is out of date with regards numbers of prisoners and the dead.
The Lord Pickles Alderney Review can be read here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6656f459dc15efdddf1a84bb/Lord_Pickles-Alderney_expert_review.pdf