Holocaust memorials remember Channel Islands' victims

Officials including the Bailiff Timothy Le Cocq attended the ceremony at the Lighthouse Memorial in Jersey

Islanders across Jersey and Guernsey have gathered to remember those who died in the Holocaust in World War II.

The services mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.

Three Jewish residents from Guernsey died in the camp's gas chambers, whilst 21 islanders from Jersey were imprisoned in Nazi camps across Europe.

Stephen Regal, head of the Channel Islands Jewish Community, urged islanders not to "look away".

Wreaths were laid at the Lighthouse Memorial in Jersey, where the names of the 21 islanders are marked.

Readings and prayers were heard at the White Rock memorial for those in Guernsey.

Who were the Channel Islands victims?

• Marianne Grunfeld was born in Poland on 5 December 1912 and moved to Guernsey between 1939 and 1940

• Therese Steiner was born in Vienna in 1916 but fled following rising anti-Semitism

• Auguste Spitz arrived in Guernsey from Vienna in 1937 to work as a cook

• All three women were deported to St Malo, France on 21 April 1942 on the orders of the German occupying forces because they were Jewish. They were later transported to Auschwitz, where they died in the camp's gas chambers

• None of the 21 islanders from Jersey were Jewish but many were treated harshly for being British and allegedly spreading anti-German news

Mr Regal said the deaths under the Nazi regime should remind islanders to stand together in the face of hatred.

"They were our normal next door neighbours," he told the BBC.

"They were deported for various reasons, some of which were fairly trivial, and then to their deaths. It's just unimaginable that you could do that sort of thing today."

Three Jewish women from Guernsey were remembered in the island's ceremony

"If we stand together and resist that kind of totalitarianism and hatred, then we can avoid that kind of thing in the future," Mr Regal added.

"You can't just look away."

The lights on the memorial flame designed by the Jersey Holocaust Memorial Committee represents those who lost their lives