The Abandoned Island

Exactly 30 years ago, a few weeks after Dunkirk, the German armies had reached the Normandy coast. They were only eight miles from the British Channel Island of Alderney. The population of 1,500 felt this was too close for comfort and, on 23 June 1940, evacuated to England. A week later the Germans moved in. It was nearly six years before the islanders began to return. They found their island very changed. There were vast fortifications, mass graves, the remains of slave-labour camps ... What really went on on Alderney during those war years? Different islanders have different stories, different theories ...