Philip George Ozard

By Gilly Carr

Philip George Ozard was born in St Saviour, Jersey, on 16 May 1889. At the time that he comes to our attention, he was married, living in Bellozanne Valley in St Helier, and working as a window cleaner. No record can be found of his wife in Jersey at this time, indicating that she may have evacuated to England without him before the occupation.

On 14 May 1942, he was sentenced by the court of Feldkommandantur to five years’ imprisonment – the longest sentence that any other islander received, and the same as that given to John Ingrouille (Guernsey) and Emma Constance Marshall (Jersey). His crime was ‘wegen unbefugten Waffenbesitzes’ – unauthorised possession of weapons. Such an offence was serious indeed and, with a five year sentence, we should not have expected Ozard to survive. Ozard was deported on 1 June 1942, aged 53, along with fellow Channel Islanders Sidney Ashcroft and Harry Featherstone.

Ozard was sent – with Ashcroft and Featherstone – to Caen Prison, where the three men stayed from 1 June 1942 to 1 July 1942. His next appearance in the archives is in Fort de Villeneauve-Saint-Georges Prison, where he arrived on 3 July 1942 with Ashcroft. He stayed here little more than a month; his prison record indicated that he was transferred to Germany on 7 August 1942.

After this date, our only means of tracking Ozard’s movements are International Tracing Service files. From these we learn that he was at Neuoffingen Forced Labour Camp until 9 May 1944, and then was transferred to Kaisheim Prison from 9 May 1944 until he was put on a forced march which ended at Landsberg Prison, where he was liberated by American forces on 30 April 1945. We cannot say with any confidence that Ozard moved straight from Villeneuve to Neuoffingen, but it is possible, although other islanders with him went via the prisons of Landsberg, Augsberg and Karlsruhe in quick succession.

In 1964, the Foreign Office tried to trace Ozard in order to send him an application form to claim compensation for Nazi persecution. They sent the form c/o Mrs E Ozard, Manchester Street, Southampton. The form was returned to the Foreign Office – no trace of Philip George Ozard could be found at that address. Although the compensation scheme was advertised in Jersey, and Philip Ozard was indeed still alive in Jersey at this date (he died in 1969, still living in the same house as he was at the time of his arrest), he obviously avoided filling in the form. From this we might conclude that his experiences were too traumatic to call to mind and commit to paper.

Our only hope of filling in the gaps in Philip George Ozard’s story is if a member of his family is able to contact the Frank Falla Archive.

Sources

Philip Ozard, Occupation registration card and forms, Jersey Archives ref. St/H/7/8447-9.

Philip Ozard’s court records, Jersey Archives ref. D/Z/H6/3/68.

Philip Ozard’s entry in the logbook for Jersey Political Prisoners, Jersey Archives ref. D/AG/B7/7.

Philip Ozard’s prison records at Caen Prison, Calvados Archives ref. 1664 w 35.

Philip Ozard’s prison records at Fort de Villeneuve Saint-Georges Prison, Val de Marne Archives, ref. 500W/3.

Philip Ozard’s records in the International Tracing Service, Wiener Library, refs. 11947334/0/1, 11494036/0/1, 11367225/0/1.