Returning to the internment camps

Jersey internees have returned to the place where they were once held as prisoners of war.

Hundreds of islanders were shipped off to German internment camps during the Second World War on the direct orders of Hitler.

Men, women and children were sent by boat to St Malo and it was from there they started their three day rail journey to the Schloss.

In carriages fit for cattle, they travelled from the port through Paris to the Belgian border, through Luxembourg to the barracks of Biberach. They were then uprooted one final time and taken to the town where they would spend the next three years of their lives.

Bad Wurzach Schloss is currently a grand imposing castle in the centre of the town, but in 1942, it was a filthy and crowded place.

Tony Barnett has returned for the second time, he used the trip as a chance to pass on his own personal history to his children and grandchildren.

He was just a seven-year-old boy when he first crossed the threshold, he had decided to return to the castle to mark the seventieth year since he and his fellow internees were set free by French troops.

Tony's son has been reflecting on his dad's time spent in the castle and how life must have been like for his family 70-years ago.