Islanders’ acts of resistance against the Nazis

SIR – Nigel Jones (“Would we have collaborated with Hitler?”, Comment, February 20) implies that the bailiffs of Jersey and Guernsey were supine, if not collaborative, during the German occupation of the Channel Islands. In fact, General Von Schmettow, the German in charge of the islands, described them as “wily”.

The bailiffs and the Dame of Sark did all they could to protect the islands by clever negotiation and wouldn’t allow Jewish islanders to wear the yellow star, which took some courage.

The islanders were both heroic and, in the end, starving. Many of them risked their lives hiding Russian prisoners. Those who were caught helping them or breaking the many rules were dreadfully maltreated in concentration camps. Those who returned never recovered and many died cruel deaths.

The bailiffs had a good idea of their possible fates. Trickery and manipulation of the enemy was the only possible course, and they accomplished this with the utmost bravery, as did many islanders. Jacqueline Crill Castle Cary, Somerset SIR – Contrary to Nigel Jones’s assertion, my father-in-law Lord Halifax did not approve of or in any way support Hitler. When he went with Neville Chamberlain to Hitler’s residence in Berchtesgaden, he mistook the dictator for the butler.

Lord Halifax was the preferred choice to succeed Neville Chamberlain, but he refused as he thought it impossible to have a prime minister in the House of Lords. When Winston Churchill was appointed he did not want to have a competitor in his Cabinet, and for this reason sent Lord Halifax to Washington.

My mother-in-law did not want to go and tried to persuade Churchill not to send them, but to no avail. She had three sons and a son-in-law fighting in the Middle East and did not want to be out of this country. Lady Holderness London SW6