Government inquiry set to expose the horrors of Nazi concentration camps on British soil – after investigation ordered into the number of Jews murdered on Channel Island Alderney

• It will examine recent claims from researchers that as many as 1,000 were killed

An official government inquiry is set to expose the full horror of the only Nazi concentration camps to exist on British soil.

Lord Pickles has ordered the investigation into the number of Jews murdered on Alderney, a tiny British possession in the Channel Islands.

Just three and a half miles long and one and a half miles wide, the picturesque island was occupied by the Nazis for most of the Second World War during which time four labour camps were built.

Two were taken over by the SS who turned them into concentration camps operating under the principle of ‘Vernichtung durch Arbeit’ – ‘extermination through labour’ – with Russian prisoners of war, German political prisoners and Jews among the several thousand inmates.

Lord Pickles has ordered the investigation into the number of Jews murdered on Alderney, a tiny British possession in the Channel Islands. Pictured: The remains of Lager Sylt concentration camp, Alderney, May 1945

German soldiers parading through Marais Square, Alderney, during their World War II occupation of the Channel Islands

Just three and a half miles long and one and a half miles wide, the picturesque island was occupied by the Nazis for most of the Second World War during which time four labour camps were built

The number of people killed has never been established. Officially, eight Jews are recorded as dying on Alderney but the new inquiry will examine recent claims from researchers that as many as 1,000 were killed and reports from the time were covered up. Eighty years on, it is hoped the investigation will finally shed light one of the darkest episodes in British history. The expert review will be announced later this summer by Lord Pickles, the Conservative peer and the UK’s Holocaust envoy.

Dame Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP whose father fled Nazi persecution in Germany, welcomed the review: ‘It is time for the British government and Alderney authorities to finally face up to the horror of what happened on British soil. There can be no more lies and no more cover-up.’

The British population of Alderney, then around 1,400 people, was evacuated in the summer of 1940 after Winston Churchill’s war cabinet decided the Channel Islands could not be defended leaving it effectively ripe for the Nazis to take.

More than 6,600 people were sent there as part of construction programme, erecting a series of fortifications.

Though the majority of prisoners were Russians and Ukrainians, brought from the occupied parts of the Soviet Union to build the giant defences of Hitler’s so-called Atlantic Wall, many Jews, north Africans and Spanish republicans were also taken to Alderney.

They were held in camps, incarceration sites and farms across the island, living in cramped conditions, often emaciated through meagre food rations, and at the mercy of cruel punishments.

The entrance to the former German concentration camp SS Lager Sylt

The number of victims has been contested, with some claiming thousands were killed with many buried in mass graves on the island

Group of German soldiers coming from the Channel Island of Alderney

According to testimony from the time, as well as prisoners who died through labour, others were tortured, shot, given fatal injections and those sick, or unable to work, were sent to extermination camps in Occupied Europe.

The number of victims has been contested, with some claiming thousands were killed with many buried in mass graves on the island.

After the war, Britain sent Captain Theodore Pantcheff, a 23-year-old intelligence officer, to the camp. He concluded that appalling acts of murder and torture had taken place but his findings were reportedly buried and none of those responsible for the war crimes committed on Alderney were ever brought to justice.

Britain has been accused of exploiting a legal ambiguity over who was responsible for prosecutions, the UK or the Soviet Union, whose citizens were among the victims – to avoid pursuing war crimes allegations.

Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls, a forensic archaeologist at Staffordshire University, said mass graves existed but that British files on them had disappeared after the war. She said her conservative view is that up to 950 died.

Professor Anthony Glees, security and intelligence expert and formerly adviser to the war crimes inquiry in the Home Office, said he would be surprised if the numbers killed by the Nazis either in Alderney or transported from Alderney on to extermination camps in Europe did not ‘run into thousands’.

Marcus Roberts, of JTrails, a Jewish historical organisation, argues that the death toll could be in the thousands. He told The Observer: ‘There are still many questions about what really went on in Alderney and who knew what.. For too long, some have been too willing to look the other way in the hope it all goes away. I hope this review will finally provide answers and some justice for the victims.’

Lord Pickles is assembling an international panel of Holocaust experts to lead the work. He told The Sunday Times that he had also asked Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, to ensure that any secret documentation was made available to the academics.

Lord Pickles said: ‘There is one file in the Eighties that went missing and I’ve asked the defence secretary to check his archives.’ He has instructed British embassies in foreign countries to ensure any files that they are able to source are made available too.

Lord Pickles said he wants the investigation to be as transparent as possible and that the public will be given access to the files. He added that no remains would be disturbed during the investigation.

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