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Who are the islanders remembered on Holocaust Memorial Day?

Who are the islanders remembered on Holocaust Memorial Day?

Saturday 27 January 2024

Who are the islanders remembered on Holocaust Memorial Day?

Saturday 27 January 2024


To mark Holocaust Memorial Day today, a commemoration is being held at the Occupation Tapestry Gallery and the Lighthouse Memorial... but who are the 21 islanders being remembered?

The anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland – the largest Nazi death camp – is marked each year on 27 January.

Jersey’s observance takes place in the Occupation Tapestry Gallery in the Maritime Museum on the New North Quay, and is followed by the laying of wreaths outside at the Lighthouse Memorial overlooking the harbour.

Erected in 1996, the memorial is dedicated to 21 islanders who died in German prisons and camps in the Second World War and the hundreds more who were imprisoned in the island and Europe during the Occupation.

Express takes a look at the 21 islanders remembered in the memorial...

Canon Clifford Cohu

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Canon Clifford Cohu, the Rector of St Saviour's Church, was part of a group who were tried in April 1943.

He had openly defied and challenged German occupiers, including sharing news obtained from the BBC while riding his bicycle through town – despite the ban on wireless radios.

Canon Cohu died on 20 September 1944 in a forced labour camp in Zöschen, near Leipzig.

Joe Tierney

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Joe Tierney is the second member of the St Saviour wireless network – who listened to the BBC on banned radios and then shared this information – featured in the memorial.

A worker in the parish cemetery, Mr Tierney was sentenced by a German court to two years' imprisonment for "manufacturing and distributing leaflets".

He was first held in a Jersey prison. As his wife was pregnant when he was arrested, he was able to go to his daughter's christening before being deported to France in September 1943.

Mr Tierney died during transport between camps on 4 May 1945.

John Nicolle

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John Nicolle was designated by German prosecutors as the head of the St Saviour wireless network.

He was sentenced to three years and was deported in May 1943.

After being moved between different French and German prisons, Mr Nicolle was sent to prison in Dortmund.

On 14 February 1945, he died of starvation, overwork, and wounds sustained during an RAF bombing.

Arthur Dimery

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A gardener and another member of the St Saviour wireless network, Arthur Dimery was sentenced to three months and two weeks in prison.

He was deported on 5 May 1943 and after completing his prison term, he was sent to Neuengamme concentration camp, and later to the internment camp in Laufen.

Mr Dimery died there of a heart attack on 4 April 1944.

William Marsh

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William Marsh, a motor mechanic, worked for Organisation Todt – a German engineering organisation known for its use of forced labour.

He was reported for misconduct in February 1944 and Jersey Heritage describes him as "rebellious by nature".

Mr Marsh was sentenced to 15 months for "insulting the German forces, disturbing the working peace and disseminating anti-German information".

He died in Germany in 1945, and Jersey Heritage say he was probably at that time a slave worker building a fuel plant in Zeitz, in what is now Saxony-Anhalt.

George Fox and Clifford Quérée

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Cabinetmaker and kitchen assistant George Fox, and labourer and storeman Clifford Quérée were tried together on 23 June 1945.

Mr Fox was charged with "continual larceny" and Mr Quérée with "continual receiving of stolen articles".

Sentenced to two years' imprisonment each, they both died in Naumburg Prison – Mr Fox on 11 March 1945, and Mr Quérée on 1 May 1945.

They are both buried in the British war cemetery in Berlin.

Emile (Joe) Paisnel

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Emile Paisnel – known as Joe – was a farmer in Boulivot de Bas, Grouville.

He was denounced for bartering wheat for coal he had stolen from German stocks.

Mr Paisnel was sentenced to ten months' imprisonment and died in died in Naumburg Prison on 29 August 1944.

Clarence and Peter Painter

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Berkshire-born Clarence Painter – who had fought in the First World War – married Dorothy Smith, the daughter of a Jersey ice cream and water manufacturer.

Their son, Peter, was born in Jersey on 11 April 1924.

Peter, like many young people at the time, defied occupiers – by, for example, taking pictures of German aircrafts.

After he was reported to Germans, the Painter family home in St Saviour was searched and a souvenir gun from the First World War was found.

Clarence and Peter were sent to France just before Christmas in 1943.

Peter died in his father's arms on 16 February 1945, having contracted pneumonia in Gross-Rosen concentration camp (in present-day western Poland).

Clarence died on 16 February 1945 while being transported between camps.

James Houillebecq

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James Houillebecq had just left De La Salle College in May 1944 when gun parts and ammunition were found at his family home.

He had stolen a German gun with some friends, without his family knowing.

Mr Houillebecq was the only one of his family to remain in prison.

He was deported in July 1944 and died in Neunegamme concentration camp on 20 January 1945, at the age of 18.

Louisa Gould

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Louisa Gould, who ran a food shop in St Ouen, was part of the resistance during the German occupation.

Together with her brother and sister, she hid Russian slave workers who had escaped brutal work camps.

Most famously, Louisa hid a Russian soldier, Feodor Buryi, known as “Russian Bill”, who became a part of the community.

She reportedly said: “I had to do something for another mother’s son”.

Louisa also hid a radio in her bedroom and was known to pass on information from broadcasts to visitors to her shop.

Louisa’s home was searched by German forces and she was killed in a gas chamber at Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1945.

Her life was the inspiration for the 2017 film 'Another Mother's Son'.

Frankie Le Vilio

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19-year-old Frankie Le Vilio was found guilty in June 1944 of "serious military larceny".

He was sentenced to three months' imprisonment.

Mr Le Vilio was sent to two prisons and three concentration camps and eventually repatriated to Nottingham.

He arrived there weakened and having contracted tuberculosis, and died on 26 September 1946.

His body was returned to Jersey in 2018 and he is now buried in Surville Cemetery.

Marcel Rossi

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Marcel Rossi, of Italian and British heritage, was born in Lincolnshire but later lived in his father's birthplace of Jersey.

He was deported in February 1943, as part of the deportations of UK-born British nationals.

Marcel and his father, Jean-Marie, were sent to Kreuzburg internment camp (Kluczbork, in present-day Poland).

Both father and son were at one point held in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp complex.

While Jean-Marie survived the camp and later died in 1967, Marcel is believed to have died in April 1945.

June Sinclair

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Described by Jersey Heritage as "a half-Jewish orphan from London", June Sinclair worked at a Jersey hotel which was requisitioned.

She is believed to have been deported to Germany after slapping a German soldier's face when he molested her at work.

She died at Ravensbrück concentration camp on 26 April 1943, aged about 20.

Frederick Page

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Born William Frederick White in Portsmouth, Frederick Page at some point moved to Jersey, changed his name and dropped six years off his age.

He worked as an agricultural labourer during the Occupation and was tried for "wireless offences" in July 1943.

Mr Page was sentenced to 21 months' imprisonment, and died in Naumburg Prison on 5 January 1945.

Edward Peter Muels

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Born on 2 July 1912, Edward Peter Muels was lorry driver for the Parish of St Helier during the Occupation.

He was charged with assisting a German deserter, David Host, and was sentenced to a long term of hard labour.

Mr Muels died at Kassel-Wehlheiden Prison on 7 January 1945.

John (Jack) Soyer

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Born in St Lawrence on 9 February 1901, John Soyer – known as Jack – was a wood merchant who lived with his wife and three children at Millbrook.

He was arrested and sentenced to 12 months in prison for possessing a wireless set.

Mr Soyer escaped from prison in France, was taken in by villagers in Bréhal in Normandy, and joined a local resistance group.

He died days before the town was liberated, after being shot by a German patrol.

Advocate Léonce Ogier

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Born in St Saviour on 15 June 1881, Léonce Ogier was sent to Paris for interrogation together with his son Richard after a raid found a map of German fortifications in their family home.

Richard was treated for a brain tumour in France, but Léonce was sent to an internment camp in Biberach.

He also had cancer but it was not diagnosed until his arrival in Germany. Advocate Ogier died on 1 August 1943.

Maurice Gould

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Maurice Gould was born in Leicester on 31 May 1924 and came to Jersey aged two.

He attempted to escape by boat on 3 May 1942 with two friends.

The boat capsized. One of the party was drowned, and the two others – Maurice and friend Peter Hassall – were arrested and sent to camps.

Maurice died at Wittlich Prison on 1 October 1943, but Peter survived and kept his vow to his friend to bring his body home.

Peter Johnson

Jersey Heritage say there is not much information about Peter Johnson, except that he was an Australian deaf-mute – which would likely made him a target.

People with disabilities were some of the first victims of mass killings.

Jersey Heritage believe that Peter was sent to France in 1943 and died at the Dora-MIttelbau concentration camp in the Hartz mountains in central Germany.

Holocaust Memorial Day

The annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration is to take place at 14:00 on Saturday 27 January 2024 in the Occupation Tapestry Gallery at the Jersey Maritime Museum and at the Lighthouse Memorial on New North Quay.

Smajo Bešo, the founder of the Bosnian Genocide Education Trust, is to deliver a speech, followed by readings by the Jersey Arts Centre youtheatre, and an address by the Dean of Jersey, the Very Rev Mike Keirle.

Dr Karen Kyd, wife of the Lieutenant-Governor, will lead the wreath-laying ceremony.

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