Occupation stories branded as "fake news"

Wednesday 10 May 2017

Occupation stories originally published by national tabloids have been dismissed as “just mad” by the Channel Islands' Occupation Society.

The Daily Mail, The Sun Newspaper and even the Times of Israel published stories which Tony Pike, Press Officer for the Channel Islands' Occupation Society, branded as “fake news” after they claimed 40,000 people were murdered in Alderney during the German Occupation.

Mr Pike said: “I wish they’d check their facts” and alleged that the papers were attempting to “rewrite history.”

Two stories printed in the Daily Mail, authored by Colonel Richard Kemp and John Weigold, claimed: “the Nazis murdered 40,000 people in Channel Island concentration camps - and planned to blitz the South Coast with chemical weapons”.

They wrote: “We are military men, with experience from Northern Ireland to Bosnia, the Middle East and beyond. One of us [Col Richard Kemp] commanded British forces in Afghanistan. We have expertise in warfare and weaponry, strategy, logistics, terrain, intelligence."

"We have brought that distinctive military perspective to bear on the troubled and often confusing wartime history of Alderney, which we have both known intimately over many years”.

However, Mr Pike refuted their claims and explained that Alderney had between 4,000 and 5,000 slave workers and that any more would have been impossible to handle on an island as small as Alderney.

Mr Pike challenged virtually every aspect of the stories explaining that fortifications were used as ammunition and fuel stores and pointed out that Sarin gas had not been invented at the time of World War Two as the Daily Mail authors had claimed.

However, despite the alleged inaccuracies reported in the Daily Mail, the claims made by Colonel Richard Kemp and John Weigold have been picked up and circulated by the Sun newspaper and also the Times of Israel which accused the UK of a cover-up and said: “Authors claim UK covered up tens of thousands dead at Nazi camps on Channel Island. 40,000-70,000 slave labourers were killed on German-occupied Alderney — 100 times the official number — researchers assert.” 

Having read the articles, Mr Pike said the “whole thing is constructed” and expressed concern that erroneous stories like these could hinder the memory of the German Occupation.

He said: “it does a lot of damage to the reputation of the Islands.”

One of the Daily Mail stories has been shared nearly 3,000 times on the internet and Mr Pike admitted that social media has exacerbated the spreading of such “fake news”.

The stories also caused an outcry on the Island of Alderney with one Islander, Patsy Martel, writing to the Daily Mail to express her upset. 

Ms Martel wrote: 

"I am astonished that the two co-authors who profess such a great knowledge of my Island, chose to ignore the fact that a prominent memorial to those poor souls already exists on Alderney and has done since the 60s."

"The Hammond Memorial was built by my family and the inaugural ceremony took place in 1966. In past years it has been a place of pilgrimage for many survivors and to this day an ecumenical Service of Remembrance is held each year. There will be a service on 4th June. I wonder if this pair will attend?
To portray the Islanders as uncaring is totally untrue, hurtful and very disrespectful."