Discourse and Defiance Under Nazi Occupation: Guernsey, Channel Islands, 1940-1945 (32 page)

By the summer of 1944, Elizabeth was effectively priced out of the black market. She turned down tea at £7 per quarter ounce, refusing to pay “these famine prices,” even though some of her friends were willing to do so. And this is an important point about the black market from the civilian perspective. There was no shame involved in needing to turn to this secondary source of nutrition, though perhaps some embarrassment in having to yield to prices that were thievery in disguise. It appears to have been normalized as an extension of life before the war in a capitalist culture; those with money, jewelry, or goods to exchange simply were able to purchase more. What they did with their money was their business, as long as they were not the ones extorting money from their countrymen.
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It might not be fair, but those with money had always had the advantage.

Quality of black-market items was an issue, since these goods were in no way regulated. Black-market goods were often shoddy to the point of potentially dangerous for health. Desperate for a bit of meat, Bill Warry broke down and bought two pounds of pork (and in his diary he puts a question mark at this point) from a Dutchman, paying 22s. 6d. per pound, and notes, “Some job to masticate.”
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As a businessman, Bill had a sense of humor about the black market, mentioning that the government was down on this underground traffic (“& rightly so”), but that the States were busy buying whatever they could for the Island—at times
utilizing the black market in France.
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And in reading his diary, hints appear that it is the bit of meat that could tempt Bill into underground transactions. After writing about the black market and pasting in stories cut from the newspaper about those caught and fined, he mentions the “good Xmas dinner” they had managed to prepare of “baked potatoes, cabbage, a nice joint of young veal which I scrounged (silence).”
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Any theory claiming that had all the Islanders just refused to buy, the prices would have come down and the black market would have withered does not seem to hold up well. The German soldiers had money to spend, and some growers were willing to sell directly to them in order to make a profit. Rev. Ord excoriated those whose “sheer lust of money” kept them from making things easier on the general population. His overall opinion is worth noting, because it reflects the common view:

The Germans they fleece by exorbitant prices—“fair game,” they call them. The Townsfolk must buy at controlled prices, if purchase be at all possible. Such prices, though far above the normal are yet too low to touch the seller's patriotism or humanity. People die for want of eggs: peasants may easily make a mark an egg from soldiers. Indeed that figure is ridiculously low as prices go. No appeal moves these stony hearts.
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That “these miserable Shylocks” could see such deprivation among their neighbors and still only focus on “their chief end in life: the acquisition of money” deeply angered even Reverend Ord, normally forgiving of other's faults.
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The only recourse for Islanders was to differentiate those running barter and black market activities that helped their countrymen to survive from those focused solely on profit. Positive gossip could laud those legitimate (in Island eyes) members of the GUT, just as negative gossip could marginalize those of suspect motive.

WATCHING AND JUDGING

In March 1943, Ken Lewis was surprised and concerned when a Mrs. Cortvriend, who claimed to be writing a book about the Occupation, dropped by the States office. His supervisor Louis Guillemette gave her considerable information and went so far as to let her look at the Controlling Committee minutes. Ken was a little shocked that President Leale would allow this to happen, considering that the minutes were meant to be confidential to the Committee and “one or two of the Staff including myself.” This led Ken to consider Mr. Leale “very slack” in issues of security as compared to Sir Abraham Lainé, the former acting president, whom he considered “more methodical and efficient.”
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Now, as it turns out, Ken had no reason to be concerned, for V. V. Cortvriend did write a book on the Occupation,
Isolated Island
, which would be published in 1947. But that lay in the future, and how was one to know who could and could not be trusted with sensitive information?

In addition to security and a need for self-protection, heightened watchfulness during the Occupation was often based on the desire for fairness in the distribution of the few resources available. One of the primary triggers of malicious or negative gossip among subordinates is an uneasy sense that some of their peers are “first among equals.” Even when there are few rewards to be had and power is negligible within a dominated society, any sense of injustice, any hint of unevenness in the distribution of benefits, will serve
as an impetus for gossip.
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The heightened lateral surveillance that the Germans hoped to establish as a means of control, pitting neighbor against neighbor in an atmosphere of denunciation and distrust, did occur in some quarters. Yet much of this increased watchfulness among the Guernsey populace turned to a control over those hoping to take advantage of their particular positions for personal gain.

It seemed a matter of common understanding that some Guernseymen and women would be in a better position to take advantage of little extras that came their way. When Rev. Ord and his wife were able to take a rare Sunday off, they were hosted for dinner by the principal wholesale and retail butchers, people whom Ord described as having “ways and means.” The Ords' hosts were “conditioned” to a richer diet than the Ords could handle, and so Grae was quite ill during the night.
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Most likely, the Ords' hosts had long been principal butchers before the Occupation and just continued their position under the new circumstances. Yet, it is generally understood, too, that access to such positions can be utilized by those in control for their own purposes. Elites in power are constantly on the watch for members of the subordinate population who can be used as “the loyal retainers, ‘trustees,’ and informers” necessary to control the larger mass. One technique to acquire such trustees is through “individual strategies of preferment,” tempting defections from the subordinate group with positions of responsibility at higher pay, additional benefits, or simply opportunities for under-the-table extras to which those in power will turn a blind eye.
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Subordinates are not powerless in this equation, and they are constantly assessing the loyalty to those “below” still held by former peers who rise to middle-management posts. Often those in such positions are never fully trusted by the powerful or the subordinated and thus open themselves to heightened surveillance and critique. From the perspective of the Islanders, those in positions of distribution or control of food were particularly important and could garner goodwill simply by passing on little benefits to others outside the immediate circle of their families and friends. Sometimes it was simply a matter of turning a judicious blind eye to the actions of former peers that could earn one a reputation as a good fellow of the right sort.

Far more of the gossip surrounding those in enhanced or trustee positions will be malicious or at least rooted in suspicion. Part of this negative assessment is purely a matter of self-protection for those left behind in the subordinate population. The most important question is that of loyalty to the larger group, and who might be prone to defection.
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Wert and Salovey point out the role of gossip as “an inquiry into the backstage lives of others: What is this person really about? What is motivating him or her? Where do his or her loyalties lie?”
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Such concerns are familiar in a business setting, but they obviously are not stray questions in a situation of war and occupation when the stakes are considerably higher.

There is a level of gossip aimed at those in favored positions that is based more on envy than on any concerns about loyalty or safety. Sometimes this is simple grousing, a heaping of scorn and contempt on those who violate the social norms of the one making the comparison. Of course, these kinds of comparisons to those who may be our “betters” in terms of position, but our “inferiors” in terms of morality serve the purpose of making us look better in our own eyes. We can take pride in our superior moral strength simply by talking about those who are taking advantage of their position in unacceptable ways.
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The king of such backbiting had to have been Bert Williams, who continuously turns a sardonic and critical eye on anyone appearing to do better under Occupation conditions. When he sees the long queues of women at the Market, endless lines that started at 6:30
A
.
M
., he moves to a further observation that
“you never see any Heads in these queues…so the only conclusion people come to is, that these Heads are getting their goods from other sources.”
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Whether this is the conclusion of “people” and widespread, or primarily Bert's belief, is difficult to say. The long Market queues were (as he observed) largely composed of women—housewives specifically—and it is doubtful that the heads of departments would have the time to wait hours in line and still fulfill their jobs. Bert's focus is on the presumed advantage of the well-placed and wealthy as opposed to the common man, and this is a continuing theme—along with basic unfairness, graft, and corruption—throughout his diary. When the meat controller, Mr. Chilcott, searched the baskets of the slaughtermen to make sure that they were not illegally taking bits of meat home to their own families, Bert fumes, “This in itself was a dam dirty trick. But of course Mr. Chilcott is meat controller and that means that he doesn't want for anything.”
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Sometimes he turns his ire on those running Market stalls and their tendency to value certain items for barter over money. Bert puts the following incident forward as typical of “what goes on every day”:

I go in the Market I want a crab, I ask a stallholder if he has any, he says he has'nt, [
sic
] but (I know he has as I have seen them come in) I hang about & presently someone comes along with a parcel, gives it to the Stallholder & lo & behold out comes a crab and away goes the customer well satisfied, & so is the stallholder as he now has something to smoke, whereas I have got money on me but it cant buy that crab.
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This was an ongoing problem of barter, and one that the States tried to control.

But Bert was just winding up his complaints about those he viewed as taking particular advantage. Were the raspberries and strawberries in season, but completely unaffordable at 10s. and 10s. 6d. per pound? The growers would have been fined in England, “But not in Guernsey, you see these fruits are grown by members of the States. Nuff Cedd.”
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And this is the way that gossip often functions: the gossiper crystallizes responsibility for a perceived social wrong on a distinct individual, or set of related individuals, and shares that theory with others.

Two incidents during the Occupation appeared to strengthen beliefs that some were using their position for personal gain while simultaneously proving the power of gossip as a normative teaching tool. If there is one marker scandal that appears in practically every account of the time, it is the Police Theft case. This one incident roiled the Island, making many question the loyalty and goodwill of those in one of the highest of “trustee” positions. It also provided one of those “valuable lessons about…how
not
to behave” that Wert and Salovey see as the comparative power of gossip.
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The facts of the Police Theft case are deceptively simple, but the actual story of what happened and what the principals of the case intended are still debated today. The case involved eighteen policemen and one civilian who were accused of thefts from the German army stores, and from the civilian stores as well.

According to Rev. Ord, commodities valued at £60 had been found in the home of one of the accused, while another had been caught with butter hidden up his chimney.
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And Ord provided the more dramatic account of the Gestapo coming to admire one of the suspected policemen's “tidy horticultural efforts all nicely weeded and dug,” complimenting him on his gardening prowess, then barking, “Bring your spade and dig a trench here!” And there were the stolen tins underneath the newly laid-in cabbages.
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Inspector Sculpher was suspended—“a
thoroughly upright and honest man” in Winnie's estimation—not because he was implicated in the crime, but because he was unaware of the actions of the men in his charge.
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It is at this point where events become less clear and ongoing questions are raised about this case. At first, sympathy of the Islanders lay with the accused, and many saw this as a resistance tactic to undermine the German occupying forces. Winnie seemed to set store by Wilfred Poat's view that this was an answer to Colonel Britton, the personified BBC creation calling for sabotage and symbolic resistance in all areas occupied by the Nazis.
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This, too, is what the police have claimed, that their actions were intended as the type of sabotage and pilfering that was a response to Colonel Britton's call to action. It was for that reason, and not just the interrogation beatings that they endured, that they signed confessions to the thefts not only to German stores but also to the stores belonging to the States. To be found guilty of theft only of the German stores as a form of sabotage would be to open themselves to the death penalty. The police were represented by Ambrose Sherwill, who had already been imprisoned by the Germans and who was determined above all to save the policemen's lives.