Campaign group push for Liberation Day 'silence'

Monday 14 September 2020

​The Jersey Occupation Civilian Campaign is continuing its push for a commemorative silence to honour those who lived through the Occupation, with its Campaign Lead travelling to Jersey to speak to the Bailiff.

In a post last week, the Campaign’s website detailed how Campaign Lead, Kev South, will travel to the Island from Lancashire in October.

Once here, he will see if he can meet the Bailiff and politicians to speak about introducing a public silence on Liberation Day next year.

He said he would be bringing photos of his own family and accounts from other families to help further the cause.

Interesting to see if I get to see Jersey Bailiff . Take images of my own family & accounts from other families also of occupation on this special journey for the Occupation Generation who endured the most ✌️???? WW2 https://t.co/TGnjIUBhqy

— Kev South1 (@KevSouth1) September 10, 2020

According to the group, they had previously written to the Bailiff for a silence to mark this June’s 80^th Civilian Anniversary – however, the Bailiff rejected this, and pointed towards Liberation Day instead.

When the group then wrote back asking for an annual Liberation Day silence, the Bailiff’s Chamber responded saying a decision could not be made until 2021, prompting Mr South to come to the island from Lancashire and, as he puts it, "beg for a silence for Occupation civilians."

Speaking to Express, Mr South said that he had a particular connection to the Occupation through his family, whose fabric business went bust due to not being able to import from the UK. 

He added though, that “like many Jersey families we picked ourselves up and started again.” 

He explained that a public silence would be “fitting” and “help everyone commemorate those who went through occupation” and “all those deported to camps in Europe we lost. Today we owe so much to Jersey people of 1940.”  

Pictured: Mr South wants to meet Bailiff Tim Le Cocq to discuss recognising an Occupation silence on Liberation Day. 

Pointing out “the important link with silence,” he mentioned that he still speaks to people alive during the Occupation who refuse to talk about it.

He also emphasised that it is “important today we face whole occupation period head on and not just the nice parts.”

Bailiff’s Chamber Chief Officer Steven Cartwright commented: 

“Mr South has been in contact with the Bailiff’s Chambers and we will continue to liaise with him on this discussion.”

The overall cause of the group is to request a National Memorial commemorating the Occupation currently has nearly 3,400 signatures on Change.com.