Mr Ford made his comments after doubt was cast on the accepted history that a man called Peter Bruce Johnson, who is believed to have lived in Jersey during the Occupation, was a victim of the Holocaust.
The issue has been thrown in the spotlight because Cambridge historian and Occupation expert Dr Gill Carr says that her research suggested it was ‘highly likely’ that a case of mistaken identity had led to Mr Johnson’s name being placed in error on the New North Quay Lighthouse Memorial, which commemorates 21 Jersey victims of Nazi persecution.
The established version – that Mr Johnson was deported to France during the Occupation and was finally murdered in Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in Thuringia, Germany – is based upon the recollections of Joe Mière. The late local Occupation historian and former political prisoner said that he had spoken to another Jersey deportee who had told him that he had been incarcerated in France by the Germans alongside Mr Johnson in 1944.
Mr Mière recalled that Mr Johnson was Australian, his job was to saw timber, he was deaf and mute and had had an accident in which he lost a thumb.
Dr Carr, however, argued in an article penned for the JEP and published on Wednesday, that there were no records of a Peter Johnson living in Jersey, being deported to France or being imprisoned by the Germans. She believes the man Mr Mière was describing was in fact someone called Thomas John Nanson, who, records show, was living under the alias Thomas Patrick Nelson in Jersey during the Occupation.
She says that there are striking similarities between Mr Nanson’s story and that of the man described by Mr Mière. Her research shows that Mr Nanson was born in Australia, lost his hearing as a result of serving in the Royal Artillery and was a timber cutter by trade. He is not thought to have lost a thumb, although Dr Carr says that his prison records, from when he was held as a forced labourer by the Germans on the outskirts of Paris, describe him as having several marks and scars on his hands and arms.
If Dr Carr is correct, Mr Johnson’s name should be removed from the Lighthouse Memorial.
However, her hypothesis has been challenged by Mr Ford, the chairman of the Jersey Holocaust Memorial Day Organising Committee.
He says that her argument is nothing other than a ‘theory’.
‘Joe Mière described Johnson as a deaf-mute in his mid to late 20s, who lived in Pier Road and worked at Le Sueur’s coal store in Hilgrove Street. Crucially, he had lost his left thumb in an accident at work.
‘Joe believed that Johnson was deported to Saint-Lô prison some time in early 1944 and then to the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp. He quotes another Jersey political prisoner, Geoffrey Delaunay, who said that Peter Bruce Johnson had been in Saint-Lô with him.
‘Unfortunately, other than Joe’s recollections, there are no written archives in the Island for a Peter Bruce Johnson, although, as Dr Carr admits, “…we must also accept that Jersey Archive does not have the Occupation registration forms of everybody … and that not all records survive from Nazi prisons and concentration camps”.’
He added: ‘One of Dr Carr’s main points is that the man she believes Mière mistook for Johnson was someone in his mid-30s called Thomas John Nanson. This would be plausible but for the fact that this man was hiding out in Jersey for whatever reason and living under the assumed name of Thomas Patrick Nelson, so no one in the Island knew he was called Nanson.
‘He wore hearing aids, but was hard of hearing, not deaf, and he could speak, so neither was he mute. His prison record notes that he had scars on his hands and arms but, significantly, he had all ten fingers.
‘I believe Dr Carr’s hypothesis contains too many “must have, seems, may have and Nelson/Nanson” to be anything other than a theory. Against this we have to take into account two undeniable facts – Joe Mière said he knew Peter Bruce Johnson and as far as Island archives go Thomas John Nanson did not exist.’
Dr Gilly Carr replies:
The information I uncovered about Thomas Patrick Nelson is indeed a theory, and will remain a theory until such time as Peter Bruce Johnson’s relatives contact us from Australia, assuming that they are not Thomas Patrick Nelson’s relatives, who have also contacted me from Australia.
To clear up some misapprehensions above, it’s important to stress the following facts:
1. Geoffrey Delauney remembered being deported with a hearing-impaired Australian. It was assumed that this was Peter Bruce Johnson. Now that we have the prison records from France of Geoffrey Delauney and Thomas Patrick Nelson, it is clear that Geoffrey Delauney was deported with Thomas Patrick Nelson. These records are online, on the Frank Falla Archive: www.frankfallaarchive.org
2. Thomas Patrick Nelson was, without any doubt at all, the alias of Thomas Frederick John Nanson. Photographs, birth and wedding certificates from this man’s family make this clear and are available to see online on the Frank Falla Archive: https://www.frankfallaarchive.org/people/thomas-patrick-nelson/
Although his Jersey registration forms were in the name of Thomas Patrick Nelson, we cannot be sure that he did not confide his true name to his friends.
3. Given that no records exist for a man named Peter Bruce Johnson, we can be almost certain that this name has been remembered incorrectly.
4. The only sticking point is that Thomas Nelson / Nanson was not missing any digits, despite the marks on his hands and forearms noted in his French prison records. For this one reason, it would be hasty to remove any names from the Lighthouse Memorial and I do not advocate such a move yet.
Even if the name of Peter Bruce Johnson is incorrect, this name on the Lighthouse Memorial acts as a form of symbolic place marker for the man whose story is as Joe Mière remembers. To remove that name now would be hasty. Many of the facts of this case are not available to us as they have simply not survived. In the meantime, putting forward theories based on newly available material – and putting that material online for everyone to see – is all we can do.
