At a prison camp in one of the Channel Islands during the Second World War, guards reportedly engaged in using prisoners for entertainment on weekends. According to new evidence, SS soldiers regularly selected about a dozen men from the Sylt camp on Alderney and transported them to a nearby light-gauge railway. There, they tied the prisoners to tipper trucks and proceeded to shoot them for amusement. Sources indicate that this grisly form of entertainment continued over an hour or more, with SS guards aiming at specific body parts until the prisoners eventually died.
This account is featured in “Ghosts of Alderney,” an upcoming documentary by director Piers Secunda that explores the victims of Nazi occupation on the island between 1940 and 1945. The film includes interviews with two daughters of Giorgi Zbovorski, a Ukrainian who was imprisoned on Alderney for 18 months. He witnessed the SS forcing prisoners to watch these shooting exercises.
Ingrid Zbovorski recalled her father’s accounts, which depicted prisoners being made to stand in formation, then randomly shot by guards for their own entertainment. Secunda spent five years researching the conditions endured by the slave laborers on Alderney, where they faced shootings, beatings, and starvation.
Secunda also stated that Zbovorski watched the target practice every Sunday during his time at the Sylt camp. The high death rate led to a delegation from Berlin investigating the camp. The head of the SS guards on Alderney, Otto Hogelow, offered incentives to the SS for shooting prisoners.
Gilly Carr, an expert in conflict archaeology and Holocaust heritage from the University of Cambridge, acknowledged the severe nature of the German occupation on Alderney. She emphasized the need to question the account thoroughly to understand the scope and duration of these atrocities before estimating the number of deaths.
Carr also coordinated the Lord Pickles Alderney expert review, which concluded that more than 1,000 slave laborers may have died on British soil at the hands of the Nazis, far exceeding previous historical records. Zbovorski’s story also includes his attempted escape from forced labor in Austria and his subsequent deportation to Belgium, where he managed to survive by hiding with a Belgian farmer. After Belgium’s liberation, Zbovorski, severely malnourished, stayed on and worked for the farmer.
“Ghosts of Alderney – Hitler’s Island Slaves,” produced by Wild Dog, a British independent company, is set to be released in the UK later this year.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/10/nazi-guards-shot-prisoners-for-fun-at-channel-islands-camp-research-says
