A Visit to Jersey

We went to visit a friend, and stayed the weekend to visit the island.

Source: Getty images

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Bill Bonner, from Youghal, Ireland

The sun shone hot. The palm trees swayed. And the beaches glistened.

But this was not some tropical island paradise. This was Jersey, a ‘tax haven’ island in the English Channel. It reminded us of Bermuda — with vaguely similar architecture, topography, flora and people. Even the English accents were familiar.

We went to visit a friend, and stayed the weekend to visit the island.

The idea of a ‘tax haven’ is slightly antique. Americans are taxed on worldwide income; there is no ‘haven’ from it. Still, as evidenced by the number of blue blazers that got on the plane in London, Jersey’s fund managers and trust administrators do a lively business, perhaps mostly for non-American clients.

Not interested in the Channel Islands? We didn’t think so. But we’ll tell you about them anyway, and we’ll include a real hero in the story.

This group of islands, off the north coast of France, are ‘crown dependencies’ of England. They are small; Jersey measures only five miles wide by nine miles long. They are not part of the UK, nor of the Commonwealth, nor of the EU.

The islands first came into the history books during the Roman era. They may or may not have been garrisoned by Roman troops, but they are mentioned by Rome’s historians and Roman era coins have been found. Much later, the same people who conquered England in 1066...along with Southern Italy and Sicily — the Normans — also took over the small islands off the French coast. Then, in the 13th century the English and the Normans parted company. Ever thereafter, the Islands — Jersey, Guernsey and Sark — remained with England, though not under the control of parliament.

A visit to the cemeteries adds a nuance. Jersey may have been “English” since 1204, but the people spoke a dialect of Old Norman French — Jerriais — up until the 19th century.

“We really didn’t have much to do with England,” said a jolly woman performing a bit of ‘living history.’ That is, she was dressed in 17th century fashion...and seated at a 17th century table in a 17th century farmhouse. The visitor was invited to see how people actually lived back then.

Not too bad, was the impression we took away. There were sheep in the meadow and cows in the corn. And all around — inside the houses and outside in the yards — chickens wandered about, many of the hens scratching the earth to show their chicks how it was done.

This ‘living farm’ was one of many historical attractions on the island. There is also one of the best preserved ‘passage graves’ in Europe, dating to the Neolithic period. There are churches from every stage of Christendom...a prehistoric cave dwelling...and a museum with a display (not the real thing) of the biggest cache of ancient Celtic coins ever discovered.

The coins seem to have been buried to avoid confiscation. The rightful owners must have figured they could hide their treasure in the ground and come back for it later.

Why didn't they come back? Most likely they were slaughtered by the invaders. Their money survived; they probably didn’t.

Our 17th century milkmaid continued:

“We are much closer to France than to England. Taking a boat to England was treacherous. You had to cross the channel. Much easier to go to France to trade.

“But then, when the steam engine came along, it was easy for us to get to England and easy for the English to get to us. Even my own grandparents still spoke Jerriais. But I don’t speak it. Almost nobody does. We picked up the English language, drinking tea, and eating scones. We’ve become very English.”

Jersey’s Englishness was tested in WWII. After the British fled the beach at Dunkirk, it was widely assumed that Britain would soon surrender. But it didn’t give in. The bombing of London merely stiffened English resistance.

But there was one part of England that was very much within Hitler’s grasp — the Channel Islands. He sent bombers against Jersey and Guernsey and let loose on the harbors. Neither island was defended...and neither had any intention of putting up a fight. One old man apparently put a pair of underpants on a pole and waved it around as a sign of surrender...and the Germans marched in.

But the Huns didn’t unleash a devil’s picnic of raping, looting and murder. Instead, they were orderly and polite, as illustrated by a handsome aristocrat — Baron Hans Max Freiherr von Aufsess — who acted as a coordinating officer between the German command and the local authorities.

It was in some ways a model for a military occupation. The occupiers were civilized. The occupied took their station with grace and dignity. So comfortable were they, one with another, that this turned into a bone of contention after the war. Some observers claimed that the islanders should have put up more of a fight. They “did not fight on the beaches, in the fields or in the streets,” wrote Madeleine Bunting. “They did not commit suicide, and they did not kill any Germans.”

Ms. Bunting pined for fighting heroes. She wanted blood. As it turned out, there was plenty of blood...but from neither the occupied nor the occupier. And the real hero didn’t fight at all.

The museums showcase the way the islanders tried to keep up with the news by radio (verboten!) or dared to undermine the German war effort in vain and petty ways. But those who suffered most were neither the Germans nor the islanders. Hitler had decided that the islands could serve as vital keystones in the ‘Atlantic Wall’ which was meant to keep the allies out. Respecting the Geneva Convention taboo on forcing enemy civilians to work, the Germans brought over thousands of Russian prisoners of war, Jews, Eastern Europeans, and Spaniards to dig, hammer, pound, and tote. More than a thousand of them died from overwork under nourishment.

But there is scarcely any mention of these slave laborers in the museums or the public monuments — at least not the ones we saw. Of the thousands of them, only one is even remembered by name, a young Russian pilot named Fyodor Buriy (nicknamed Bill). He had escaped the labor camp and was hidden by an island woman named Louisa Gould. Her own son had enlisted in the British navy and been killed in the war. She was determined to protect ‘another woman’s son’ from a similar fate.

‘Bill’ survived and made his way back to the Soviet Union. But Mrs. Gould was ratted out (probably by a neighbor) and was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp, where she died.

Twenty years after the war, ‘Bill’ published a notice in the Jersey newspaper thanking all those who had helped him escape. His ‘heart was heavy,’ he said, thinking of Mrs. Gould, who ‘was like a mother’ to him.

Regards,

Bill Bonner