War History Online has an
article about a long-dead Briton, killed by the
Nazis:
On 30 June 1940, German troops landed on Guernsey, in the Channel Islands; though situated not far from the French coast, the islands are British dependencies and, in 1940, with the German army advancing through France, the British government decided they could not be defended. They were consequently demilitarized, and Germany occupied the islands until their final surrender in May of 1945.
The Nazis allowed the islands’ local government to continue under supervision, something that many islanders disapproved of; they considered it tantamount to collaboration with the enemy. A strict curfew was imposed and, although newspapers were still published, they were censored. Radios were banned, so islanders knew little of the progress of the war in other areas. Hitler had decreed that the islands were to be turned into an impregnable fortress, and many islanders were forced to work on the fortifications.
Large numbers of islanders saw it as their patriotic duty to resist the Nazi invaders, and one of them, twenty-year-old Sydney Ashcroft (photo), was sent to prison for what was called a ‘serious’ theft of food from a Nazi store, and for striking a German officer. Sydney lived with his mother on Guernsey, and was her sole surviving child; two infant daughters had died of illness. Sydney’s story was that the officer pushed his mother, to whom Sydney was devoted, and that is why he hit the man. Deported to Germany, Sydney spent time in several prisons, before arriving at Straubing, near Munich, shortly before the end of the war. He was one of thousands of prisoners who were assembled there before journeying to Dachau, the notorious concentration camp for political prisoners, Jews, Gypsies, members of the Resistance, and more.
Sydney’s mother, Charlotte, never saw him again. She stayed on Guernsey after the war, and remained convinced that her beloved son would someday return. She died in 1981, having waited in vain for news; it has subsequently been revealed that Sydney died of tuberculosis, one week after VE Day.
No further trace of Sydney was ever discovered, until Doctor Gilly Carr from Cambridge, who had been researching Sydney’s case for years, finally unraveled the mystery of his burial. Using a Red Cross graveyard record, Dr. Carr and Sydney’s surviving second cousin traveled to the cemetery near Straubing and found Sydney’s unmarked grave.
Nearly 75 years after leaving his mother, Sydney’s last resting place is no longer a mystery. It finally bears a headstone (photo) referring to Sydney as a political prisoner.
Rico says you don't push around somebody's mother... (And that whole 'impregnable fortress' thing didn't work anywhere else, either.)
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