In the early hours of 16 September 1942 there was a knock on the door of ten-year-old Gloria Webber's home in Jersey. The caller was a local official with bad news. Gloria, her parents and four younger children were all on a list of Jersey civilians to be deported to Germany on the direct orders of Hitler. Gloria and her siblings, with hundreds of other Jersey children, spent the next years of their childhood interned in an old castle in the south of Germany, called Schloss (the German for castle) Wurzach. The island of Jersey lies off the coast of Normandy and could not be defended after the fall of France. The Germans invaded and occupied the island in June 1940. The deportation of British civilians from Jersey by the Germans is a little-known part of World War II history. The deported Jersey islanders were given only hours to close up their homes and organise their affairs and were allowed to take only what they could carry. After a gruelling three-day rail journey across France and Luxemburg to the far reaches of south Germany near the Austrian border, and a short stay in an old barracks, they arrived at their internment camp. Schloss Wurzach was a grand baroque palace built in the eighteenth century by one of Germany's noble families. But by World War II it had fallen on hard times and was used as a prison camp. The schloss was cold, damp, in poor condition, and very dirty. The internees were horrified by what they found. No arrangements had been made to accommodate women and children and sanitation was inadequate. Gloria's mother had the herculean task of keeping her young family fed, clothed, clean, healthy and happily occupied, when everything was scarce and with absolutely no modern conveniences. Twelve of the islanders died in Wurzach during their detention and are buried in the town; others suffered fractured lives. This short book recalls Gloria's childhood experience and is illustrated with vivid pictures of camp life painted by her father during their confinement using paints from Red Cross parcels. It also describes how she and other internees returned to Germany in later life to celebrate their liberation with the people of Wurzach, showing there can be reconciliation and friendship between former enemies.
About the Author: Susan Symons is the author of four books on The Fascinating Royal History of German Castles under the title Schloss (Schloss I, Schloss II, Schloss III, and Schloss in Bavaria). Each of these books visits twenty-five beautiful castles and palaces in Germany and tells the amazing stories of the historical royal characters associated with them. She was inspired also to write Schloss Wurzach when learning that a neighbour in her village was interned in the palace as a child, as one of a group of Jersey islanders deported by Hitler in World War II. The accidental discovery by Susan of a portrait of Queen Victoria in her attic sparked her lifelong interest in European Royal History. By reading about the Queen's colourful life story she realised that history need not be boring and that royal history in particular is both fascinating and fun. She says it is like a historical version of Hello magazine. Susan has an MA in Victorian Studies from London University, where her dissertation was on the public image of the young Queen Victoria. She makes regular visits to Germany and writes and lectures on German schlösser and German royal history as well as about Queen Victoria. Susan lives with her family in Cornwall, in the far south west of the UK, which for her is the most beautiful part of the whole country. All of her books are available on Amazon.