Figure 1.--The British camps on Cyprus were very basic with almost no amenities. The internees lived in tents that were hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Water had to be trucked in by the British and was often in very short supply. Here a boy attempts to get the last drops of water out of a tank. The British did not allow journalists into the camp. The Jews smuggled in the photographer and her camera. The British driver was.' that concerned about the rules and wanted his photograph taken. Photographer: Ruth Gruber.

Cyprus is an eastern Mediterranean island south of Turkey. It has been fought over since ancient times, in part because of copper mines. The Ottoman Turks seized the island from the Venitians (1570). The island had a majority Greek population, but a Turkish minority gradually developed, Britain took over control of the island after the Russo-Turkish War (1878). The Germans during World War II seized Crete, but did not have the naval strength to reach Cyprus. And Cyprus bases proved useful to the British in the naval struggle with the Italians for control of the Mediterranean. Some Jews from the Balkans managed to reach Cyprus and safety during the War. Very few Jews in the Balkans unless they escaped survived the German Holocaust. The British interned Jews trying to enter Palestine without a valid immigration certificate. At first they used Atlit detainee camp in Palestine and of all places a camp in the Mauritius. [Ofer] The British decided to use conveniently located Cyprus to intern Jews intercepted trying to get to Palestine (August 1946). [Kochavi] Cyprus was located just north of Palestine and as it was controlled by Britain made for a convenient detention sites. The British had already interned a small number of Greeks working for independence as well as Balkan Jews in detention caps. [Wasserstein, p. 329] The number of Jews intercepted at sea by the Royal Navy was increasing rapidly. And the Royal Navy needed some place to intern these people. Frustrated Jews in the DP camps mostly located in occupied Germany attempted to reach Palestine by sea. The British eventually operated camps for intercepted Jews during 3 years on Cyprus (August 1946 through January 1949). The British opened 12 camps. A total of 53,510 Jews were held in these camps. Conditions in the camps were dreadful, although not homicidal like the German camps. The interned Jews were only able to get to Palestine after Israel declared its independence and prevailed in the First Arab-Israeli War (1949-49). [Tucker]

Sources

Kochavi, Arieh. "The Struggle against Jewish Immigration to Palestine," Middle Eastern Studies (1998) Vol. 34, pp. 146–167.

Ofer, Dalia. "Holocaust survivors as immigrants - the case of Israel and the Cyprus detainees". Modern Judaism (1996). Vol. 16, pp. 1–23.

Tucker, Spencer C. The Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A Political, Social, and Military History (2008).

Wasserstein, Bernard. Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939-1945 (London: Institute of Jewish Affairs, 1979).

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