Discourse and Defiance Under Nazi Occupation: Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1940-1945 (43 page)

Before I consider the final area where the States interposed themselves between occupier and civilian—one that would be the source of much regret, soul-searching, and later recrimination—it is worth a pause to consider the response to the array of public documents from the Occupation that were released in the 1990s. Why did a revisionist reading catch hold so strongly, one that accepted these public documents as the “truth” of the Occupation and largely ignored the evidence readily available in the hidden transcript? I believe that here we can see the power of a public transcript that is “systematically skewed in the direction of the libretto, the discourse, represented by the dominant.” It is very difficult to know, simply based on the public transcript, whether “a performance is genuine or not.”
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The greater the disparity of power, the more onerous the situation; the fewer the options for escape or improved conditions, then the more survival, and whatever level of resistance can be mustered, must take place behind a dumb show of “humility and deference.”
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And if we hope to understand the reality of certain historical periods, it becomes more important to penetrate the “display and public theater” inherent in domination,
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and peer behind the scenes.

One example will have to stand as a call for a more complex reading of the public transcript. On August 7, 1940, the first full Occupation meeting took place that brought together members of the Guernsey States with Major Lanz and Dr. Maass. It was at this meeting that Sherwill made a speech outlining his view of how the Occupation should proceed:

May this occupation be a model to the world. On the one hand, tolerance on the part of the military authority, and courtesy and correctness on the part of the occupying forces, and on the other hand, dignity and courtesy and exemplary behaviour on the part of the civilian population…When it is over, I hope that the occupying force and occupied population may each be able to say: of different nations, having different outlooks, we lived together with tolerance and mutual respect.

This statement has been highlighted repeatedly and was of such importance to Madeleine Bunting that it provided the title of her book
The Model Occupation.
Often, it is treated as somewhere between a Vichy-style offer of collaboration and a simple toadying to German authority. Bunting, for example, takes it at face value: as a sincere statement of principles of
“scrupulous obedience,” “meek gratitude” for anything positive offered by the Germans, and “a rejection of any form of resistance.” She goes on to describe this as a policy of “peace at any price” and one that very nicely “suited German interests” as it reduced the Committee to only the most “timid” of protests in their policy of continuous appeasement.
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It is time to appreciate this little speech for its rhetorical aptitude and the way it encapsulates Sherwill's strategy of charming insincerity, even as he attempted to structure the Germans' occupation for them. Much like the recording made on August 1, it cannot be read separate from the knowledge that barely one week earlier, Martell and Mulholland had appeared at Sherwill's door. Sherwill spoke on August 7, fully aware that he was guilty of conspiring after the fact with these British raiders and had been instrumental in taking steps to protect them from being shot as spies. Even as he spoke, he was waiting to see what the fallout would be for the families that concealed the young men. And, most notably, he was working every angle to encourage leniency by the German authorities. Those who would take this display of deference as anything more than a manipulative performance should be reminded that Sherwill would provide similarly illegal aid for Nicolle and Symes two months after this speech promised “exemplary behaviour.” This little address was a performance of cool nerve and serves as a reminder that there is an art to acts of subordination when they shelter subversive intent. Scott uses a wonderful simile for such performances of “deference and a smile” as being “like the normal walk of the fleeing suspect when he encounters a cop on the beat.”
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Yet even separate from the knowledge of events behind the scenes, this speech performs the old trick of proposing ground rules in advance, and ones that are favorable to the powerless.
We
promise to be on our best behavior (at least on the surface), displaying a minimum level of deference and a show of cooperation, and
you
will show toleration in dealing with our actions (especially if we are caught) and treat us with the same respect you would grant to your equals in power. It is easily imagined, with freedom not in the offing, that this proposal could appeal to many oppressed populations, particularly when held under force of arms. Sherwill and, in his turn, Leale evidently took “dignity” as the watchword of their performances, rightly assessing that this would be the best stance in dealing with the German preference for formality and hierarchy.

Suitable to their natural personalities, Sherwill coupled dignity with a bluff friendliness and Leale with a cool practicality, and both carefully guarded their chosen guise of compliance. Subordinate groups in other settings, one example being women in the occupied South, choose to “play dumb,” using a stance of artificial naiveté and ignorance as a veil. Sometimes a combined “fool and trickster” persona provides the same cover for exercising the “guile of the underdog”—as captured in the saying of Jamaican slaves, “Play fool, to catch wise.”
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If successful and believed by the powerful, these carefully honed performances join other aspects of the dominant worldview and are woven into the public transcript. There the performances continue to live, becoming part of the stereotype of the subordinate group.

The subtle art of subordination and the need for a parallel transcript to cue peers in on actual intent become apparent when a performance is awkward or the actor oversteps the compliance acceptable to the community. In 1941, in response to the call from “Colonel Britton” for symbolic resistance, a spate of V's were chalked up all over Guernsey. This episode and the response by the Germans will be discussed at length in the next chapter, but the Germans' vehement determination to stamp out this particular resistant act took the Island, and certainly States officials, by surprise. On July 4, 1941, a “
WARNING
” was published in the paper stating that these acts were “regarded very seriously” by the Germans. It warned that
the broader population might be “penalized in the same way as in the case of acts of sabotage.” The notice ended with an appeal against “these foolish acts, which accomplish nothing but merely bring grave consequences in their train,” and the warning was signed by the Lieutenant Governor and Bailiff Victor Carey. The response to this first warning was minor in the community; Rev. Ord used the formula that the notice “appears over the signature of” the Bailiff (the same wording chosen by Ken Lewis), an acknowledgment that the message came from German authorities.
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Then, on July 8, a second notice appeared with the heading “reward of £25,” offering this amount to the first person to give information leading to conviction of anyone marking a public place with the letter “V” or with “any other sign or any word or words calculating to offend the German authorities or soldiers.” This notice, too, appeared over the signature of Victor Carey.
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This time, the response by the Island community was quite different. Ord underlined the word “calculating” in the notice, which he took to “betray the hand of a German,” but he still found it “hard to believe that the Bailiff agreed to this notice.” It was a move that would earn the Bailiff considerable flak at the time and would haunt him after the Occupation. It is, along with Sherwill's August address, the prime piece of evidence against States officials pointed to by later seekers of Island collaboration.

In fact, Carey was questioned about this notice in June 1945. He took full responsibility for appending his signature, stating that it followed “a very stormy interview with the Feldcommandant.” The threats made at that meeting combined in Carey's mind with his knowledge that a list of eighty potential hostages (for execution or deportation to a concentration camp in Germany) had already been gathered. Eager to prevent widespread reprisals, he agreed to sign, later stating his belief that “the majority of the civilian population realised that though these notices bore my signature they were really German orders.”
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But the frail Bailiff overestimated the ability of Islanders to see through this particular performance of subordination. Response was instantaneous and widely negative, even though some thought the Germans had simply put the notice in the paper using the Bailiff's name. Why did the first warning pass without concern and this second one call down the wrath of the Bailiff's peers? As we have seen in earlier chapters, trust was the coin of the realm among the loyal majority of Guernseymen and women. The tendering of a reward placed the temptation of money as a possible wedge between neighbors. Even with faith that the majority would turn up their noses at such an offer of cash for betrayal, Islanders were well aware of that minority element who would not hesitate to make accusations (false or true) if they could line their pockets or curry favor with the occupier. As Rev. Ord responded to the notice, “Only Quislings need apply!”
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Although the Bailiff apparently foresaw only a chilling effect on the chalking of V's rather than wholesale betrayal of one neighbor by another, others saw a danger that could strike at the heart of the Island's sense of community. The offer of money for lateral surveillance played directly into the panoptical nature of the Occupation as the Germans were choosing to conduct it. It is little wonder that a cartoon was reportedly passed around showing Victor Carey as Judas Iscariot dangling from a noose in a tree.
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As Rev. Ord put it, “At present the Bailiff's name is ‘Mud’ with many.”
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Although there is no evidence that anyone attempted to claim this reward,
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the incident reveals the limits to a strategy of performed compliance.

States officials appear to have learned certain lessons from the negative reaction by the community. Ken Lewis maintained that when notice of the bread ration cut was published in
May 1943, Abraham Lainé signed only after the words “By order of the German authorities” were added.
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And on February 19, 1944, John Leale signed a notice published in the paper that read:

I am directed by the Feldkommandant to warn all concerned that he has ordered that Members of the German Forces must be given prior attention in all shops and other establishments frequented by them and that severe punishment will be imposed on any who disregard this order.

This notice may have appeared over Leale's name, but the careful wording left no doubt but that he was “directed” to warn the populace of an order made by the Feldkommandant, and that punishment would come from that quarter.
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Still, there is no formula for determining the actions that a subordinate community will find acceptable and will understand as cooperation retaining the hardened kernel of resistance within. The challenge is not merely to avoid detection by the powerful, who could then short-circuit tactics of obstruction and institute reprisals, but to court detection by peers. The porous nature of the hidden transcript often makes it an inefficient ally in this endeavor.

THERESE, AUGUSTE, AND MARIANNE

With a better understanding of the way the Island officials chose to handle their newly subordinate position, and the strengths and weaknesses of this strategy, it is time to examine the most heartbreaking event of the Guernsey Occupation. Much that has been written about the Occupation of Guernsey focuses on the fates of three young Jewish women: Therese Steiner, Auguste Spitz, and Marianne Grunfeld. All would be identified as Jews, deported to France, and subsequently murdered in the extermination camps of the Third Reich. They are only three of the innocent victims among the millions to die in this way during the Holocaust, so why are we fascinated with their fate? I believe that our deep interest is natural, for these women domesticate a monumental tragedy, bringing it down to a size that we can feel on a personal level. They look out at us from their identification photographs, and through this artificial immediacy, we can at least try to put ourselves in their place: scared, defenseless, and doomed at a point when life should hold such promise. When the Holocaust seems both too large and too staggering to grasp, these women—like Anne Frank and her family—help us to recover the individual suffering of those who died at the hands of monsters.

Born in Vienna, Austria, Therese Steiner was a dental nurse who had traveled to England to work with Edgar Potts, a dentist in Kent. With the outbreak of war in 1939, the entire family moved to Sark, and Therese went along to serve as nanny to the Potts children. Although Dr. Potts returned to England to resume practicing dentistry the following year, Mrs. Potts took the children and Therese to Guernsey. Then, as rumors of a possible Occupation spread, Mrs. Potts returned to England with the children, forced to leave behind Therese (who, as an “enemy alien,” could not travel). Auguste Spitz shared many similarities with Therese Steiner. She was also born in Vienna and had come to Guernsey to work as a nanny in September 1937. During the years leading up to the outbreak of war, the Aliens Office in England had closely regulated the comings and goings of aliens to the Channel Islands. As the Occupation drew closer, and as dictated by British policy, “enemy aliens,” including Therese and Auguste,
were interned from early May until June 25, 1940. Thus, Therese Steiner and Auguste Spitz were also among the twenty-eight names of enemy aliens placed on a list compiled a month before the Occupation began.
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Upon their release from internment, both women went to work at the Castel Hospital. Auguste, who went by the nickname “Gustie,” served as a domestic at the hospital, and Therese was employed as a nurse.
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