Alderney WW2 forced labourer story inspires song

Friday, 17 January 2025 07:05

Screenshots from the Island of Shadows music video and song writer Tim Osborne

Guernsey based pilot and historian Tim Osborne has written and produced a song called 'Island of Shadows' inspired by an Alderney war story.

'The Island of Dread in the Channel' tells the story of Georgi Kondakov, a Russian teenager who was sent to Alderney in 1942, and forced to build part of Hitler's Atlantic Wall.

Tim Osborne, who grew up in Guernsey, was inspired by the book and has released a song, called 'sland of Shadows, in memory of the many hundreds of slave-workers who died.

Tim says Georgi, who was just 16 when he was in the Bailiwick, would have endured starvation, inadequate clothing, occasional beatings, and hard manual labour.

"He witnessed so much and put it down in writing.

He came back in 1990 as a guest of the States of Alderney to meet everybody and he showed people exactly where things happened.

His memory was so sharp, so that book was really accurate and inspired my lyrics."

Tim says the Occupation should never be forgotten.

"I think everyone in the islands, whether they were born here or moved here, should understand the history of what we went through.

My mother was here, and she was near to death when Liberation came. I think she weighed around five stone.

This is a part of history that really should not be forgotten."