page_title: Cyprus internment camps
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Cyprus internment camps / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Moshe Wilensky and different from the DP camps in Cyprus Live עברית: משה וילנסקי ושונה בהופעה בקפריסין במחנות העקורים, Original Image Name:משה וילנסקי ושושנה דמארי בהופעה בקפריסין, נוסח הקרדיט:ארכיון עין השופט, Location:מחנות העקורים בקפריסין
context_page_description: Cyprus internment camps were camps run by the British government for internment of Jews who had immigrated or attempted to immigrate to Mandatory Palestine in violation of British policy. There were a total of 12 camps, which operated from August 1946 to January 1949, and in total held 53,510 internees.
  Great Britain informed the United Nations on February 14,
  1947, that it would no longer administer the Mandate for Palestine.
  This prompted the UN General Assembly to recommend partition of Palestine into
  independent Jewish and Arab states on November 29, 1947. Some
  28,000 Jews were still interned in the Cyprus camps when the
  Mandate was dissolved, partition was enacted, and the independent
  Jewish State of Israel was established at midnight Palestinian time
  on May 14, 1948. About 11,000 internees remained in the camps as
  of August 1948, with the British releasing and transporting the
  internees to Haifa at the rate of 1,500 a month. Israel began the final
  evacuation of the camps in December 1948 with the last
  10,200 Jewish internees in Cyprus mainly men of military age, evacuated to
  Israel during January 24–February 11, 1949.
context_section_description: In the White Paper of 1939, the British government decided that future Jewish immigration to Palestine would be limited to 75,000 over the next five years, with further immigration subject to Arab consent. At the end of World War II, there were still 10,938 immigration certificates remaining but the five years had expired. The British government agreed to continue issuing 1,500 certificates per month, but the influx of Jews, especially from the displaced person camps in Europe, well exceeded that number. It was decided in August 1946 to hold many of the illegal immigrants on Cyprus. Previous places of detention had included Atlit detainee camp in Palestine, and a camp in the Mauritius. A few thousand refugees, mostly Greeks but also a "considerable number" of Jews from the Balkans, had reached Cyprus during the war years.
  At its peak there were nine camps in Cyprus, located at two sites about 50 km apart. They were Caraolos, north of Famagusta, and Dekhelia, outside of Larnaca. The first camp, at Caraolos, had been used from 1916 to 1923 for Turkish prisoners of war.
  The majority of Cyprus detainees were intercepted before reaching Palestine, usually by boat. Some were on vessels that had successfully run the British blockade, but were caught in Palestine. Most of them were Holocaust survivors, about 60% from the displaced person camps and others from the Balkans and other Eastern European countries. A very small group of Moroccan Jews was also in the camps. The prisoners were mostly young, 80% between 13 and 35, and included over 6,000 orphans. About 2,000 children were born in the camps. The births took place in the Jewish wing of the British Military Hospital in Nicosia. Some 400 Jews died in the camps, and were buried in Margoa cemetery.
caption: Moshe Vilenski playing piano and Shoshana Damari singing at DP camps in Cyprus (ca. 1947–48)
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