This innovative heritage trail explores Nazi slavery in the Pas de Calais in World War II and the 'Holocaust in Sight of England'. It creates a new European 'Trail of Memory' along the 'front-line' of Nazi slavery in Western Europe in memory of the victims of Nazi slavery. The trail included the 19+ Jewish slave labour camps along the coast created for Jews from across Europe as part of a system of 2300 slave labour camps specifically for Jews and some of the surviving sites of labour and memory associated with their feats of 'super-human labour'. The enslavement of many other groups and nations in the area is part of the trail of memory as well, as many Russians (including children as young as 12) were brought to the area, though at least 27 nations were enslaved in the Pas de Calais and in the Channel Islands, often employed in constructing the giant V-Weapon block houses further inland.

The former Jewish camp at Sangatte reminds us that the current 'camp' at Sangatte is not the first and that there is a long history of conflict in the region and that the great international forces of each era pushing marginalized and dispossessed peoples to the fringe of Europe. This trail has a message relevant to the present and future as slavery is still common across the world and takes many forms.

Click here to download the trail route