Archaeologists may dig for artefacts at Alderney's former SS concentration camp

Tuesday, 28 May 2024 11:00

Approval and funding for Alderney's airport runway extension will mean part of Sylt camp is concreted over and it is being recommended that a dig takes place to search for buried artefacts.

The site of former SS Lager Sylt sits at the westerly end of Alderney's runway.

Part of it is already used for training by the airport fire service and if the runway extension gets approval and funding, that area will be concreted over.

A planning officer's report, which will go before Alderney's States on 30 May, recommends the site be examined for artefacts before that happens.

Dr Caroline Sturdy-Colls, who wrote the book Adolf Island and has spent many hours investigating Sylt, says it is of enormous historical importance:

"Obviously Sylt is a protected conservation area already so there are laws about how sites such as that should be handled in the future.

I hope there will be due consideration to the real impact that the extension of that runway would have on the remains of the concentration and former labour camp."

There are moves to give the sites of the other remaining two labour camps conservation status and already information boards have been put up, explaining their significance.

The Pickles inquiry into the deaths of slave labourers in Alderney concluded that as many as 1100 may have died of starvation, over work and brutality at the hands of the Nazis.