By Cantor Sheldon Foster Merel
ENCINITAS, California — This unusual film title on Netflix promptly caught my attention. I had no idea what it meant. Netflix gave it high star ratings , but I double checked with the “Rotten Tomatoes “ site. To understand the geographical setting where Guernsey is located in the story I checked my map, and discovered Guernsey and the Channel islands are small specs on the map., (really small) and far closer to France than their England homeland
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society film is a combination of World War II history and a developing romance. Both are true. When World War II began, Winston Churchill realized the islands were strategically weak and indefensible so he removed its armaments so German invaders would hopefully not bomb the population.
In 1940 some 30,000 Channel Islanders (one third of the total population) were evacuated. In 1941 , German troops invaded the islands without any resistance. This was the only part of England that Germans were ever able to occupy .
The movie was filmed in 2018 , and its screen play is based on the 2008 popular novel of the same name, written by American authors Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrow .
In the opening scene , four Guernsey island friends are stopped by German soldiers for breaking the evening curfew. As an excuse they claim they had just come from a meeting of their Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society. Amazingly, it saved them. Actually, during the war they met secretly every Friday evening to read portions of the very few books on the island.
Jump ahead to 1946 ,a year after the war. We meet the successful London based author Juliet Ashton (played delightfully by Lily James). After her latest book was published, she received a letter from Dawsey Adams from Guernsey island (solid performance by Michael Husman). He was part of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and had found a copy of a book with Juliet’s name scribbled in it. Since there were no book stores or libraries on the island, Adam traces Juliet down to ask if she could send him a book by Charles Lamb . She sends Adams a copy of Charles Lamb’s book, but in exchange wants to learn more about the Society. After corresponding with Adams and some residents, her curiosity is piqued. She makes plans to travel to the island to write a book about this strange named society, and learn how the islanders survived the German occupation.
Just before Juliet boards the ship to Guernsey she accepts a beautiful engagement ring from her American boy friend. During her time on the island with Adams and residents she does not wear the ring, and her feelings toward her beau change.
The plot thickens as Juliet meets new personalities each with intimate stories they share. The film has an excellent script supported by first rate actors. The more I watched the movie, the more I got hooked and had to stay the course. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie from beginning to end.
I will stop here rather than spill the whole plot and spoil it for you. I hope my little “teaser” review will inspire you to rush to the theater, or find the movie on Netflix as I had. I am confident that even those who read the original book, will still enjoy watching its story come alive on the screen.
The film was directed by Mike Newell with an outstanding cast of actors including the familiar Tom Courtenay and four women who appeared regularly in the NPR series , Downton Abbey.
I started out to write a review of the movie, but one click of my cursor immediately revealed that a small group of Jews also lived in Guernsey. The story of their horrible treatment was not fully told in the movie, but is a significant part of the island’s history and belongs in my review.
Here are some of the facts of the German Inquisition in Guernsey and the Channel Islands:
The Germans immediately instituted anti-Jewish measures: anybody with more than two Jewish grandparents was defined as a Jew, all Jews were to be registered, all businesses owned by Jews were clearly marked as a “Jewish undertaking.” Businesses owned by Jews — including those who had already left the islands — were “Aryanized” and sold to non-Jews. Jews were barred from many jobs, had their radios confiscated, were banned from entering public buildings and were only allowed into shops for an hour in the afternoon. Slave laborers, many of them Jews were brought to the islands from European concentration camps and worked to death to build fortifications,
Three Jewish women who had fled Central Europe to Guernsey in the 1930s, but were unable to leave Guernsey as part of the evacuation in 1940 were delivered to the Nazis by the local Guernsey police. They were taken to France and murdered at Auschwitz within weeks. Many of the remaining Jews were deported under orders by Hitler in revenge for a British commando raid on the nearby island of Sark.
Guernsey and the other islands were liberated in May 1945 , and the English Channel islands continue to be popular tourist attractions for world visitors.
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Merel is cantor emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel in San Diego. He may be contacted via sheldon.merel@sdjewishworld.com