Crowds come together for slave workers' memorial

Michelle le Cornu helped lay one of the 36 wreaths which were placed to remember those forced into labour during the German Occupation

Organisers of a memorial in tribute to people forced in slave labour during the Occupation in Jersey said more people werre attending the service.

Wreaths were laid at the Slave Workers' Memorial at Westmount on Liberation Day to remember the thousands of people who suffered at the hands of the German forces.

Some of those attending said the service was “poignant” given conflicts happening elsewhere in the world.

Organisers said more people from different backgrounds came to the memorial as well as the families of those affected by the forced labour.

Flowers and special messages were left in front of the memorial

Michelle le Cornu’s grandparents helped shelter a Russian slave worker.

She normally attended with her father but this was the first service she had attended since he died after the memorial in 2023.

Ms le Cornu said she had seen the service “grow each year” after it started “with a very small group and it’s now become much bigger with the children and grandchildren of slave workers coming”.

She added the “struggles” and “risks” people like her grandparents took to help others showed “that for all the monstrous stuff that happens in the world, there are very good, ordinary people”.

Organiser Gary Font read out a tribute before the service

Memorial organiser Gary Font said the turnout was “fantastic to see” and there were “some familiar faces and some new faces” at the service.

His father was a Spanish Civil War fighter who was then forced into slave labour in Jersey by German troops.

Mr Font said remembering those affected by the Occupation was “something Jersey people do very well”.

He added the service was “always very emotional” and those who had died “would be delighted to see their grandchildren and great-children laying wreaths”.

Bailiff of Jersey, Sir Timothy Le Cocq, laid one of the wreaths