Gilly Carr

Taboo and sensitive heritage: labour camps, burials and the role of activism in the Channel Islands.

This work was supported by both the British Academy [grant number SG142541] and the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research (for the fieldwork in Jersey) and Staffordshire University (for the fieldwork in Alderney).

Coins, crests and kings: Symbols of identity and resistance in the Occupied Channel Islands

During the German Occupation of the Channel Islands, 1940–1945, the ratio of occupying soldiers to civilians was higher than anywhere else in Occupied Europe; thus, armed resistance was virtually impossible. In its place, unarmed and symbolic resistance grew in importance, and while the role of this has been played down, such acts, many of which left a material trace, were of great significance to islanders. The case study presented here examines the role of coins and trench art (such as cigarette lighters and badges) made out of coins, which were used as symbols of resistant identity during the German Occupation. It is argued here that coinage is particularly appropriate and versatile for Occupation trench art, made and used by civilians and occupying soldiers alike, because of the key symbols of patriotism and identity that they carry. In this article, the author shows how these symbols were used at different times in the biographical trajectories of different types of trench art made from and with coins, and varied in meaning depending on context and owner.

Prisoner of War Archaeology

Prisoners of war represent an unusual category of the incarcerated in that they are normally fit, law-abiding, self-sufficient, and imprisoned only because of their allegiance in a conflict. How authorities manage such inmates, and how internees react to these unexpected and enforced conditions can be explored through material culture. Until the late eighteenth century, it was normal to have ad hoc and often short-term holding of PoWs. But with the development of substantial armies and navies and so the ability to take large numbers from even a single conflict, the concept of PoW camps developed in order to manage the captives. Moreover, in the twentieth century xenophobic concerns arose regarding citizens from enemy states, leading to internment of civilians. All these decisions and policies led to material changes—the construction and management of camps and the activities of ingenious PoWs from a wide range of backgrounds. Archaeology can reveal the actual practices of the authorities, and also the ways in which internees worked within and against the conditions in which they found themselves. Material culture can challenge established myths propounded by all sides in conflict, and can also assist in healing wounds and confronting our heritage.

Denial of the Darkness, Identity and Nation-Building in Small Islands: A Case Study from the Channel Islands

This chapter takes as its point of departure the opening chapter of the work of Gabriella Elgenius (2011) and, to a lesser extent, the work of Benedict Anderson (2006) who has argued that nations are but ‘cultural artefacts’ and ‘imagined communities’. I am drawn to the idea that the nation as an entity exists first and foremost in the imagination, an artefact comprising various elements chosen to fit that imagining. For, as will be discussed in this chapter, just as nations are cultural artefacts, so too are the aspects of heritage that they choose to symbolise, imagine, define and build themselves. Elgenius argues that symbolism is an important part of the nation-building process. For her, these symbols include such things as flags, anthems and national days. She further states that ‘nations are layered and their formations ongoing and visible in the adoption of national symbols’ (2011, p. 1). Taking the Channel Islands as my case study, in this chapter I shall argue that the German occupation of 1940 to 1945 added a new layer to the islands’ identity. That is, it provided a new range of symbols and events (cultural artefacts) out of which new identities were imagined and constructed. Alongside new layers of post-occupation identity that have gradually accreted since 1945, the formation of the nationhood of the Channel Islands has similarly been an ongoing process and has been subject to similar ongoing change.

“My Home Was the Area Around My Bed”: Experiencing and Negotiating Space in Civilian Internment Camps in Germany, 1942–1945

In 1942 and 1943, 2,200 Channel Islanders were deported to civilian internment camps in Germany. The role of the material culture made by internees from the recycled contents of their Red Cross parcels allows understanding of the use and perception of space in the internment camp. The most ubiquitous images produced in the camps showed how internees experienced and negotiated space and territory in the camp on a variety of levels: around their beds; their barrack room or dormitory; and in the buildings and grounds of the camp as a whole. Beyond this lay the immediate vicinity of the camp—the fields, village or townscape visible through the barbed wire. At yet another level of remove was the space of their unrestrained imagination which was usually the landscape of home. Using these nested levels of experienced and imagined space, this paper examines the confined world behind barbed wire that the civilian internees called home.