Author, screenwriter and feminist Jenny Lecoat shares her debut novel, THE GIRL FROM THE CHANNEL ISLANDS, based on her family's experiences in German Occupation

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

The Occupation of the Channel Islands has been a backdrop to my life ever since I can remember. Born only fifteen years after Jersey’s liberation to parents whose childhoods were spent under Nazi rule, I was always aware that two of my relatives had been sent to concentration camps for sheltering an escaped Russian slave worker. As a result, my great uncle became the only British survivor of Bergen-Belsen, and my great aunt died in the gas chambers of Ravensbrüch.

As the only part of the British Isles to fall to the Nazis in WWII, the island’s Occupation is a dark and complex period that even now divulges new secrets. When Hedy’s story finally came to public attention after seventy years, I knew that it encapsulated the oppression, terror, and defiance that characterized those years, and had the potential to highlight the little-known aspects of a frequently misunderstood history. I hope this fictionalized account of Hedy’s experiences provides some insight into a world that few are left to provide first-hand and brings understanding and inspiration to future generations.