20th September 1945
Jersey man gives evidence at Belsen concentration camp trial
Jerseyman Harold le Druillenec was the only British survivor of the Belsen concentration camp, to which he was sent towards the end of the Second World War. He had already spent time in several other camps over the previous year. He had been arrested, along with 17 members of his family, for helping his sister Louisa Gould to shelter an escaped Russian officer.
Following the war, he gave testimony at the trial of those who had run the camp, describing an intolerable regime in which cannibalism was rampant and where he was tasked with placing bodies in mass graves.
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Other events that occured in September
Construction of Gorey Railway begins
- The honour of cutting the first sod in the construction of Jersey’s new Eastern Railway line went to one of the directors’ wives.
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First cat to fly from Jersey finds fame
- Swannie made history when it became the first cat to fly between Jersey and the mainland.
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“Let ’em starve,” says Churchill
- By the late summer of 1944, the war had turned against Germany and things were getting very uncomfortable in Jersey, Guernsey and Sark.
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Normandie 3 starts delivering power to Jersey
- Normandie 3 is a 35km-long, £45m cable linking Jersey to the French power network that went into service in September 2014.
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