Discourse and Defiance Under Nazi Occupation: Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1940-1945 (30 page)

Warning messages are often those conveyed through the “grapevine,” a term coined in America sometime in the late 1840s or early 1850s to compare the twisted nature of rumor and gossip (the “grapevine telegraph” of distorted talk from person to person) to the straight lines of the new electric telegraph that was considered such a marvel.
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Some rumors seem to have such a clear purpose that they appear to be planned and sent abroad with a goal in mind. Warning rumors, such as the one about the girl electrocuted when she trespassed, seem particularly structured around a desired outcome. When there was crackdown on black-marketeers, with some men involved given five years imprisonment, Elizabeth Doig reported a rumor at the same time that there was powdered glass in some of the sugar that was being sold, and chalk in some of the flour.
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This rumor may have developed spontaneously—Elizabeth seized upon it as an explanation for her own bout of gastric upset—but its timing seems to indicate a conscious hand at work.

An equivalent rumor had been passed around earlier in the spring of that year (1943) that a number of Germans had died from poisoning in the food, wine, and spirits that had been imported from France, purportedly because they were tainted with arsenic and iron filings. Winnie Harvey gave some credence to this particular rumor, saying that the States were testing food being imported for civilians' use, and noting that the chocolate and cheese intended as an “Easter treat” for the Islanders had been discarded. Now in analyzing a rumor such as this, it is important to note that Winnie uses the phrase “we hear that” as the lead-in to her explanation. Thus, she is employing rumor to verify rumor. In effect, this is an unsubstantiated discarding of hypothetical treats due to a rumored poisoning.
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Such a story, if sent around on purpose, would warn civilians away from items that might have been sabotaged by the French Underground. It would also make anyone contemplating collaboration in exchange for German food or drink think twice about the wisdom of such a move. Such apparent practical and ideological benefits for the Islanders point to the important rhetorical purposes that rumor could provide in a time of oppression.

TITTLE-TATTLE

By August 1940 multiple social feelers had been sent out by German officers, still laboring under the belief that a pleasant new relationship could be established with the Guernsey populace. The occupiers had arranged for several dances for Germans and civilians to be held at St. George's Hall, and must have been delighted when not only did some Islanders attend but also several civilians held reciprocal events in their own homes. What pleased the Nazi
elite outraged the Island as a whole, who sharpened their tongues to mount a blistering attack on these “turncoats” who were quickly “suitably ostracised.” Kitty Bachmann wrote to her mother that the names of those entertaining the Germans would come as no surprise, particularly one man—an Englishman not all that long a resident of the Island—who now was broadly being referred to as “Herr Blank.”
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An odd little battle erupted among those telling this tale. Kitty was flabbergasted when a mainlander had the temerity to say to her, “This sort of thing would never happen in England,” leading her to retort that every person identified thus far as entertaining Germans had been an English transplant It is rather remarkable to see this small tension over comparative loyalty crop up early in the Occupation, only to be echoed at the end of the twentieth century by those seeking evidence of Islander collaboration. At the time, although staunchly defending the “overwhelming loyalty to the British Crown” of her fellow Guernseymen and women, Kitty wisely predicted that the Island would “produce her own crop of traitors, they infest every sizeable community the world over.”
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Kitty was less concerned over those making a conscious choice to fraternize with the enemy, and more worried about friends put in an untenable position by German overtures. Faced with “a dearth of dance-partners,” the Germans directly issued invitations to the daughters of some of the Bachmanns' friends. This situation was more awkward than it might first appear. The offers in this case were “declined, firmly,” but with the knowledge that the family ran the risk of antagonizing men with the power to do them harm. It was, Kitty maintained, a “precarious” place to be, for it was difficult to know how these German officers—who considered these invitations a great honor that they were conferring—would react to such a rebuff.
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It was not merely that the “honored” family was refusing to fraternize with the enemy; they were, in their refusal, insulting that enemy at a time when the reaction could not be predicted.

Very early in the Occupation, Islanders had to grapple with the fact that some among them were willing to ease their way through the new circumstances undeterred by thoughts of patriotism and untroubled by ethical scruples. For those who were already thieves and rogues (and every population of 25,000 has its share of those), the Occupation presented new ground on which to operate. For any woman who had always, as the charming old phrase goes, sailed through life on her bottom, the influx of handsome German officers and men must have seemed like a unexpected benefit of war. Kitty Bachmann was right that her mother, to whom her diary entries were directed, would recognize the names of early welcomers of the enemy presence. Yet, she was also correct in predicting that over time, and under wearing circumstances, some Islanders would very consciously put their patriotism, even their fellow feeling with their neighbors, on hold and seek whatever personal advantage could be gained through fraternization and collaboration. Still others could be said to accidentally overstep the invisible and fuzzy ethical line that separates clever survival tactics from unacceptable actions.

The modern fascination with this minority population of quislings, informers, and other rogues is far out of proportion to their actual number. So many recent books (not just supposed “exposés” by journalists, but mysteries like Elizabeth George's
A Place of Hiding
) and television shows (like the British
Island at War
series) cannot resist the easy plot device of secret collaborators, or the forbidden love between Guernsey maid and dashing German soldier. Considering that such individuals did exist and provide a dramatic fillip to the norm of Occupation life, not to mention a dangerous counterpoint to Guernsey resisters, it is difficult to blame these authors and dramatists for their focus on the exception rather than the rule.
Also, the need at the close of the war to decide on whether there would be war-crimes trials for certain named collaborators shifted the emphasis to those who had failed their country, rather than those who acquitted themselves with honor.
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The truth is that it will always be impossible to put a number on the bad players of various stripes in Guernsey, though every reasonable assessment is that the percentage of the population was quite small. Kitty speaks at this early point in the Occupation of the “99% who do not fraternise with the Germans.”
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She asserted that, despite certain exceptions “in the woodpile, Guernsey's attitude towards them [the Germans] is correct.”
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On the other hand, you have Madeleine Bunting, who, typical of her style, indicts everyone in a blanket statement that “islanders compromised, collaborated and fraternised just as people did throughout occupied Europe.”
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But if a person looks at the evidence cited by Bunting, rather than her conclusions, a different picture emerges. She mentions a letter by an anonymous Islander, one that was smuggled out by an escapee and published in the
London Times
on December 5, 1944: “The only people who can get any food now are the collaborators [described later in the letter as “the black marketeers…the informers and quislings” that should be “dealt with”] and the jerrybags and there are a few hundred of each kind.”
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Yet, if this number is read in reference to Guernsey, then “a few hundred” (300?) of each kind would combine to be somewhere between 2 to 3 percent of the population. Even in a letter written by an Islander aggravated enough to send communication through an escapee, and thus subject to exaggeration, a 97 to 98 percent majority managing to do the right thing on a daily basis seems to be a reasonable estimate.

Yet what damage even a small percentage of nest-feathering in a population could cause, and what a shock it was to most Guernseymen and women that
any
Islanders would forego ethics to get by or thrive financially. Jack Sauvary, who makes a pretty fair model of the average Guernseyman, was “stunned” at the lack of sincerity he found in some of the civilian population. Although he does not give details or name names, he speaks of those who could “run with the foxes and hunt with the hounds,” shifting with the circumstances to play the side that benefited them in the current moment. This revelation was actually depressing for Jack, who took it much to heart, claiming, “Life is very disappointing.”
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Jack wanted to see the better side of people and was like many who could forgive those who “kept friendly” with the Germans for a “little food.” But by 1944, he had come to the conclusion that the great motivator of fraternization was “money, the great curse.” By that late date in the Occupation, it was clear to him that there were those who “would sell their own relations or country for money.”
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As it became clear to the Islanders that some of their neighbors were no longer to be trusted, an old and readily available means of control was honed to deal with the problem. If rumor served as a means of sense-making and the expression of common interests, then gossip provided a far more directed and powerful method of self-protection and constraint.

Although rumor and gossip are sometimes blended in the public mind, they are actually two very different discursive moves with distinct purposes. Sarah Wert and Peter Salovey provide the cleanest definition of gossip when they describe it as “informal, evaluative talk about a member of the discussants' social environment who is not present.”
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This definition rings true with our common understanding about gossip: it is the process of talking behind the back of another specific person. Unlike rumor, which may be highly generalized, gossipers are telling stories about a particular target who is known to them, and quite often, although not always, with whom they have a personal relationship. If rumor has sometimes been viewed as
the proof of a gullible mind, then gossip is often treated as mere tittle-tattle, an “indirect form of aggression, akin to teasing” and of little public importance.
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Slowly, such views of this type of informal discourse have given way to an understanding of its strategic value, especially when more formal channels of communication are blocked.
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Gossip, in particular, serves as an efficient weapon for those who have in other ways been disarmed. One aspect that has emerged in recent studies of gossip is the dramatic upsurge in the amount of gossip within a society under external threat from a more dominant society.
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In some more commonplace situations, the ability to gossip about our bosses and our peers at work gives an illusion of power where none exists. Yet, in a situation of high stakes, gossip can be wielded with controlled intent, far more than is seen in rumor transmission.

Although gossip has multiple functions, there are two purposes that emerge as particularly important during the Occupation of Guernsey. First, gossip has power as a teaching tool. It is a means whereby peers are able to pool their knowledge, information, and beliefs in order to understand which actions are permissible and which actions are beyond the pale. By gossiping about the other's failings, and less commonly about the other's successes and positive actions, a society transmits a sense of cultural norms and the expectations of moral conduct. Baumeister et al. say it best when they describe gossip as “observational learning of a cultural kind” and maintain that in learning of “the misadventures of others, we may not have to endure costs to ourselves,” simply because we can avoid similar mistakes.
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There is considerable power in storytelling, or as some would say, telling tales out of school, because the narrative form has a far stronger impact than any list of rules and regulations. The use of purportedly true stories of the failings of others functions much like fables and fairy tales. Through admonishment and disapproval, and perhaps even a satisfying ending of the guilty party's fall from grace, gossip is well structured to teach lessons even to the young.
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Although some gossip is actually positive, we tend to think of gossip as derogatory. This negative form may be more useful during times of hazardous oppression, as in war and occupation, because of the heightened need to learn about dangers.
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But gossip has the advantage of traveling in disguise; when we speed gossip on its way, we often know only the most recent stops on its journey and not its point of origin. And this tale told of another will continue to be spread only so long as it fulfills some need of the tellers. It is for this reason that we say that gossip, like rumor, may die down given time.
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One of the needs fulfilled by conveying gossip resembles the social spotlight provided by passing rumors. Although passing a negative tale about someone we know is an occasion for guilt and is disapproved of by most religions, it is also enjoyable, much like all storytelling. As with rumor, we hold our audience by being the first to convey new gossip. Our interest in the story is often enhanced because the teller and hearer both share a relationship with the absent subject. The audience for gossip is thus encouraged to comment and speculate on the story, making gossip “a shared and collaborative experience.”
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By relating a story tinged with malice about another, we also enhance our own status as someone who knows the rules of society. It is a move of moral superiority, because it subtly implies that our own behavior could better pass the inspection of others.
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