Israel’s Ambassador in Nicosia, Oren Anolik, said his country’s struggle for security and peace is “still on-going.” In a speech at a memorial ceremony at the BMH, in Nicosia, commemorating 76 years since the closure of the British detention camps in Cyprus for Jewish refugees, Anolik said that the horrific events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists unleashed a “brutal massacre, murdering thousands of innocent Israelis, raping women, abducting civilians, and inflicting widespread terror, remind us that the road to peace remains long.”
Addressing the same event, Defence Minister Vassilis Palmas said that immediately after the Second World War, Cyprus served as an intermediate refuge for thousands of Jewish survivors seeking to reach their homeland. We must firmly stand against all forms of violence, antisemitism, social inequality, intolerance, and discrimination, he added.
In his address, Ambassador Anolik said between August 1946 and February 1949, more than 52,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors — taken off 39 ships – who had endured the worst horrors of the 20th century, found themselves behind barbed wire once more. They were detained in a dozen camps situated across the island. During this period, approximately 2,200 Jewish babies were born in Cyprus. We stand today on the ground where many of those newborns took their first breaths, he said, adding that “this site holds profound significance. It is one of the foundations of the shared histories of Israel and Cyprus.”
Anolik described the story of the detention camps as the foundational link between Israel and Cyprus”. The Jewish detainees in Cyprus were denied their freedom and were kept in uncertainty about what the future held for them, however, in “those dark days, a light shone – kindness and solidarity from the people of Cyprus. We remember and honor today not only the over 52,000 souls who escaped the horrors of the Holocaust. Today, we also remember the brave Cypriots who stood by them” and extended a hand to the refugees.
Some of these Cypriots worked inside the camps while others lived in nearby towns and villages, “all of them contributed significantly to the relief, well-being, and freedom of the detainees.
In his speech – read by the Ministry’s Acting Permanent Secretary Anna Aristotelous – Defence Minister Vasilis Palmas noted that during and immediately after the Second World War, Cyprus served as an intermediate refuge for thousands of Jewish survivors seeking to reach their homeland.
He added that over 50 thousand displaced individuals, having endured the horrors of the concentration camps, “arrived in Cyprus with one unwavering aspiration: to rise from the ashes and rebuild their lives with dignity, peace, and security.”
The Minister said the response of the Cypriot people to this humanitarian crisis was immediate, profound, and heartfelt. “From 1946 until the closure of the last camp in February 1949, Cypriots, extended compassion and solidarity, offering invaluable support, comfort, and assistance to the Jewish detainees housed in the British detention camps of Caraolos, Famagusta, Xylotympou, and Dhekelia.”
During this period, 2,200 children were born in Cyprus. “Their existence and presence here are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Their perseverance in the face of extreme hardship stands as a powerful reminder that even in the darkest of times, humanity can triumph over oppression and injustice”, the Minister remarked.
