All countries strive in one way or another to erase the most dishonorable traces of their past, as is the case with the infamous Alderney Nazi Concentration Camp, one of the UK islands in the English Channel, the existence of which remains a mystery to the British themselves.
Determined to focus on where barbarism buries civilization, the British artist Piers Secunda (1976) exhibits these days the fruit of his research on Alderney, passed through the sieve of artistic creation to have a more direct impact on the public.
The exhibition “Alderney: The Holocaust on British Soil”, at the Arc Gallery in London, reveals findings by Secunda and the group of forensic scientists with whom he collaborates, as the only firing squad that Nazi Germany had in the UK.
The archipelago of small British Crown Dependent Islands off the French coast – the best known of which is Jersey – was occupied by Nazi Germany from the summer of 1940 until the end of the war.
The German presence is well documented, but less so the labor camps that were established in Alderney, one of which would become a concentration camp for Jews and political prisoners from countries such as Spain, France, Germany, Poland and, mainly, Russia.
“It is very little known, especially because it is not taught in schools. If you go down the street and ask someone if they know that there was a concentration camp in the United Kingdom, most will think this is a joke“, explained Secunda.
For this artist, who before investigating Alderney examined the trail of cultural destruction left behind by the Taliban and the Islamic State, “it is natural for politicians to downplay difficult things and give it to others who are positive”.
Not surprisingly, for the United Kingdom it was “embarrassing and even humiliating” see that despite the fact that the allies had landed on the beaches of Normandy in June 1944, it was not until a year later, with the end of the war in Europe, when the Nazis left the channel islands.
Alderney, in fact, did not surrender until May 16, 1945, eight days after the German capitulation. “They were fanatics. The commander had been handpicked by (SS chief Heinrich) Himmler himself and had been instructed to not return the islands to the UK. They knew they were surrounded, that the war was ending, but they fought endlessly,” Secunda says.
And in the middle of that tiny island of less than 8 square kilometers, fortified like a porcupine, the prison of Sylt, which after the arrival in 1943 of a contingent of the SS It became a concentration camp.
few vestiges
Only a few pillars remain standing where the place used to stand. Impossible to know such elementary data like the number of people who passed through it or how many of them died. Although a first count pointed to the figure of 400 deaths, Secunda believes that there were many more.
Throughout the year that elapsed from the Normandy landings to the end of World War II, Nazi officials were able to get rid of or hide the documentation. Fortunately, the testimony of the rescued prisoners remained for history.
How to make art from horror? For Secunda, “by creating these works, I make a statement of intentswhich is the most important thing an artist can do.”
“All art is about something: if it doesn’t have a theme, if it doesn’t communicate, it’s not art. Art is a communication system. What I wanted to communicate is that when you physically encounter these works, you get an emotional response that you won’t have if you’re just looking at some images on television or in a newspaper”, he considers.
In a preponderant place in the exhibition is the mold that Secunda made of the execution wall full of bullet marks, as corroborated by forensic experts Nicholas Petraco and Peter Diaczuk.
“This is the execution wall of a firing squad. And the section shows the bullet marks made by the Mauser rifles. The smaller ones, according to forensics, are the result of the deceleration of the bullet after passing through materialsas the human body would be in this case”, he explains.
Reproductions of documents, personal testimonials and photographs that were found in the field, which have been treated by Secunda to present them as artistic pieces that attract attention due to their garish colors.
“The vivid colors come from photos I took with my mobile phone of flowers and plants in Alderney, which it is famous for its wild flowers. And the black color is gunpowder, the cordite from a German artillery piece that a friend of mine opened and burned,” he adds.
With this combination, Secunda intends to recreate “the contrast between the incredible beauty of the island, with turquoise waters, beautiful beaches and those flowers, and this dark history of the occupation, of the mass murders and forced labor”.