Currently using the working title Britain Under the Nazis: The Forgotten Occupation, the two-part series uses eye-witness accounts to tell the story of what it describes as ‘one the most controversial periods in WW2 British history’.
Entries from diaries, memoirs and letters written by both the island residents and their occupiers will be brought to life by actors.
The programmes use research by historians Gilly Carr and Louise Willmot and its producers, Minnow Films, said that this included recently unearthed documents.
Minnow said the invasion of the islands was a propaganda coup for Hitler but what started as a ‘model occupation’ degenerated ‘into a nightmare roll-out of Nazism – with persecution, anti-Semitic orders, informants, mass deportations, starvation and slave labour camps.
‘There was no official investigation into the Occupation but the fall-out from the division it caused remains toxic to this day.’
Dr Carr said she invited Dr Willmot to get involved in the programme.
Dr Willmot is a retired academic and was formerly principal lecturer in history at Manchester Metropolitan University.
‘She, Paul Sanders and I were the only academics with expertise on the German Occupation of the Channel Islands and co-wrote our book together ‘Protest, Defiance and Resistance in the Channel Islands, 1940-1945’, which came out in 2014,’ said Dr Carr.
She said she was often asked to do documentaries on the subject since she has written seven books about the Occupation and, along with Mr Sanders, was one of two expert historians in Europe.
‘More latterly, we have been joined by Caroline Sturdy Colls for Alderney.’
Drs Carr and Willmot are both interviewed in the documentary.
‘It takes the form of selecting six characters from the Occupation and having actors narrating elements of their story or reading from their diaries, with Louise and I providing a commentary, or adding context or opinions, and travelling to the Channel Islands to the places where events happened.’
While Dr Carr came to Guernsey, Dr Willmot went to Jersey: ‘We were both going to go to both islands but I am not allowed to go away in term time, and flights kept being cancelled because of winter storms,’ she said.
The documentary has not yet been given a screening date but Dr Carr thought it would be near Liberation Day.
