Cyprus marks 77 years since closure of last camp for Palestine-bound Jews

Defence ministry permanent secretary Andreas Kountouris on Monday attended a ceremony to mark the 77th anniversary of the closure of the last of the detention camps set up by the British colonial authorities in Cyprus to house Jewish people bound for Palestine.

He gave a speech at the event on behalf of minister Vasilis Palmas, and began by condemning the Holocaust.

“The mass extermination of millions of Jews during the Holocaust, combined with the entrenched antisemitism which shaped the policies of several states for decades, demonstrates in the most tragic way the failure of the international community to protect the Jewish people,” he said.

He then stated that “the idea of creating a separate Jewish homeland had already emerged in the late 19th century, within a European framework that favoured the crystallisation of nation states”.

“During the Jewish refugees’ journey to their new homeland, Cyprus became a place of temporary refuge. Within this framework, the operation of British detention camps between 1946 and 1949 marked one of the last major chapters of the Jewish immigrant presence in Cyprus,” he said.

He pointed out that “more than 50,000 persecuted people” had passed through Cyprus between 1946 and 1949, and that they had “maintained their dignity in the search of the hope that had been painfully absent from their lives”, before praising the Cypriot people’s response to the arrivals at the time.

“At this critical historical juncture, the response of the Cypriot people was immediate and tangible, demonstrating the enduring solidarity and deep humanitarian ethos which consistently characterise them in times of need,” he said.

He also highlighted the fact that 2,200 Jewish children were born in the camps, before describing them as “part of the shared history of Cyprus and Israel” and saying that they “remind us of the resilience of the human spirit and our duty to preserve the memory associated with this chapter of history”.

“We are obliged to teach future generations that memory is a form of resistance against forgetting, against racism, and against every form of intolerance. We are obliged to teach future generations that humanity is not a given, but something which must be cultivated, preserved, and consciously observed,” he said.

“As we pay tribute to all those who, under conditions of extreme persecution, dehumanisation, and constant existential threat, maintained their human dignity and kept hope for a better future alive, let us all work for a world in which peace, solidarity, and mutual respect are the foundations of our societies.”

More than 52,000 detainees, most of whom were Holocaust survivors, were held in Cyprus after the ships on which they were travelling from Europe and northern Africa were diverted to the island amid a British blockade of Palestine.

There were two types of camps in Cyprus: five summer camps at the Karaolos military base in Famagusta, which is now the United Nations peacekeeping force in Cyprus (Unficyp)’s sector 4 base, housing Slovakian peacekeepers, and seven winter camps in Dhekelia.

Around 80 per cent of those in the camps were aged between 12 and 35, while 8,000 of them were aged between 12 and 18. Most of the children and teenagers were housed in Dhekelia.

Most of those interned in Cyprus did reach Palestine, with the State of Israel being created in 1948.