Virtual Book Talk: ‘Adolf Island’: The Nazi Occupation of Alderney

The Wiener Holocaust Library is delighted to have hosted a virtual talk with Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls and Associate Professor Kevin Colls, authors of ‘Adolf Island’: The Nazi Occupation of Alderney as part of our new academic books event series. ‘Adolf Island’ offers new forensic, archaeological and spatial perspectives on the Nazi forced and slave labour programme that was initiated on the Channel Island of Alderney during its occupation in the Second World War. Drawing on extensive archival research and the results of the first in-field investigations of the ‘crime scenes’ since 1945, the book identifies and characterises the network of concentration and labour camps, fortifications, burial sites and other material traces connected to the occupation, providing new insights into the identities and experiences of the men and women who lived, worked and died within this landscape. The book is the culmination of ten years’ research carried out by Staffordshire University forensic archaeologists Professor Caroline Sturdy Colls and Associate Professor Kevin Colls. Their investigations on the island have also been the subject of a TV documentary that was screened on the Smithsonian Channel in 2019. Moving beyond previous studies focused on military aspects of the occupation, the book argues that Alderney was intrinsically linked to wider systems of Nazi forced and slave labour.