Chris Craddock
BBC Jersey Community Reporter
BBC
Laura Garvin (left) and David Drage were babies when deported to Bad Wrsach in 1942.
A group of Jersey detainees returned to concentration camps in southern Germany 80 years after their release.
They were seen around a camp near the town of Bad Wrzach. They were forced to live behind barbed wire from 1942 to 1945.
The Germans rounded up British-born people and their families before sending them to concentration camps during the occupation.
Over 600 people ended in Bad Wersach, and about 200 were children.
“Smuggling the pram”
David Drage was the youngest boy to be deported with his family and taken to a concentration camp in nine months.
He said: “My father was able to smuggle prams from jerseys to Bad Wrsach by talking to sailors and railroad men.”
Drage said “it was used by all the children,” and his parents “reluctant to talk about what happened, but he “is quite curious, so I got most of the important stories from them.”
“My own personal memory was the moment of liberation when the French tanks arrived, and being a small child raised in this quiet place scared me to die.”
Gisela Rothenhausler offers them from a jersey guided tour around Bad Wurzach
Gisela Rothenhausler, who took the detainees on a tour of the concentration camp, said when such a visit happened, “it’s always been a great moment for us.”
“The first big visit I had was in 2005, and some of the detainees were a bit reluctant to come here, but after seeing how much Germany had changed, they remained friends,” added Rothenhausler.
She is part of the bad Wurzach Partnerschaft committee that works with the Jersey people to help build bonds between the island and the German town.
Local German media also covered the visit, and the detainees were interviewed by Patrick Muller of Schwabish Zitun.
He said he wanted to talk to them.
He added: “I hope many people will have the opportunity to talk to them and listen to them.”
The Jersey-born group also visits the town of Bibarach, where around 1,000 people remain in Camp Rindell and where others have been taken to bad Wrsach.
Patrick Müller is a local journalist who covers the visit of Bad Wurzach
