商品簡介
The diaries of Ruth Ozanne give us a remarkable eyewitness account of daily life throughout the German occupation of Guernsey from 1940 to 1945. At the beginning of the occupation, there is an atmosphere of good-humoured defiance on the island. The relatively few German soldiers are on their best behaviour and the islanders were bolstered by a stream of optimistic rumours. Life gradually darkens, however, as vastly more arms and troops arrive, supported by Organisation Todt labourers, to make the island part of Hitlers Atlantic Wall. Luxuries quickly disappear and severe food shortages become part of the struggle to survive. Periodic RAF raids and German artillery shatter the grim peace. The black market thrives while foreign labourers beg for food. There are deportations and many privations. Towards the end, both islanders and occupying army are starving.
作者簡介
William Parker was brought up in Guernsey. His father, Major John Parker MBE, is mentioned in Ruth's diaries when John, a cousin of Ruth, was captured on a mission to Guernsey in September 1940. This family connection led to William's involvement in reading, cataloguing and editing Ruth's diaries when they came to light in 2009. He lives in Buckinghamshire, where he pursues his interests in history, sailing and gliding. Ruth Ozanne was born in 1888 and died in 1970. For most of her life she lived in St Peter Port in Guernsey. She was a lifelong diary writer. Her first diary was written at the age of thirteen and her final diary was completed at the end of the Second World War. In between, she wrote sixteen volumes, including five volumes recounting her experiences as a Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse behind the lines in France during the First World War. After her death, the diaries passed to relatives but remained unread until they were discovered in an attic in Edinburgh in 2009.
