History of Guernsey St Saviour, St Pierre du Bois, Ste. Marie du Catel, and the Vale. The loss of Normandy by King John in 1204 isolated the Channel Islands from mainland Europe. Each time England and France went to war over the coming centuries, trade to and from the Channel Islands was restricted or banned and even when not officially at war, the island was repeatedly attacked by continental pirates and naval forces. Fortifications were improved in the Channel Islands, manned by professional soldiers and the Guernsey militia who would help to defend the Island for the next 600 years. Service was compulsory
History of the Jews in Guernsey identified in Guernsey and Sark Marianne Grunfeld, born in Poland in 1912, had studied horticulture at the University of Reading before going to work on a farm in Guernsey. She was identified in April 1942 as Jewish. Theresia Steiner, an Austrian, non-practising Jew, who had come to the Islands from England and become trapped in the Islands by the invasion as she had been detained as an alien, amongst 30 enemy aliens who were arrested and detained in June 1940. She didn't have a UK visa to go to the UK as required for immigrants from Germany and Austria (from