SIR,—In your issue of September 5th you published an article
on internees who were members of organisations declared illegal at Nurem- berg. My comrades and I agree entirely with the conclusions of your correspondent, but we are bound to make a comparison with our own position. There are 25,000 to 30,000 German prisoners of war who were previously soldiers in the Channel Islands. Through the signature of people who were later punished as war-guilty we have been declared prisoners of war though no fighting actually took place. Theoretically we were prisoners from the beginning of the invasion. We came to England, and we cannot understand why we are now placed in the last group to be repatriated. In the first issue of the Guernsey Evening Press published without German censorship it was vouched for that we soldiers of the Channel Isles had been decent and helpful to civilians. Many of us correspond regularly with our friends in the islands. And for this we have been punished with three and a half years' imprisonment, and yet we belong to none of the organisations declared illegal at Nuremberg.
We are grateful for the many concessions we have received up to now. But the full enjoyment of the majority of these has been hindered by the petty prohibitions or modifications in individual camps. There are plenty of examples. To mention them separately would take too long. How- ever, two examples may be cited. When we send parcels to Germany (four a year) we have to send what the majority of us cannot obtain. The articles that we can buy are mostly those we are not allowed to send to Germany. And, secondly, from the point of view of the young ones among us who have been betrayed in their youth—with three to four years as soldiers and now more than two years as prisoners of war—we are allowed to visit dance-halls (unlicensed). Since, however, most of these halls open at nine in the evening such visits are impossible, for we have to be in bed in camp—even at week-ends—at ten o'clock.
It is so with many things. What the right hand gives the left hand
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