The Cyprus Camps opened on August 14th, 1946, a year after the end of World War Two. Many survivors of the Holocaust had come to the bitter realization that Europe with its horrors was no longer a place for them to live. Their only desire was to go to Palestine. According to the terms of the British White Paper of 1939, immigration to Palestine was limited to 75,000 Jews over a period of 10 years. As this figure was very low considering that thousands clamored to go, the so-called illegal immigration came into being.

In August, 1946, Britain's Foreign Minister, Ernest Bevin, initiated a policy of deporting back those Jews who attempted to land in Palestine outside the permitted quota. All kinds of boats were now used for the illegal immigration, most of them highly over-crowded and in frail unsafe condition. The figure of 7,500 passengers on one special ship was quoted in some reports, and the journeys across the Mediterranean were undertaken at great risk. But in the end, more often than not, their landing was foiled and the would-be immigrants were forcefully transported to Cyprus and placed into detention camps behind barbed wire in Famagusta, which is about 200 miles from Palestine.

Picture the scene [of those Jewish war refugees seeking entrance to the Holy Land]. This journey extends to 14 days. Fourteen days and nights in vessels which are hardly seaworthy, lying on what amounts to little more than wooden planks. These planks are layered narrowly, placed one on top of the other, so that those lying on them are absolutely unable to reach the sitting position. They are forced to lie flat, looking upwards at the next wooden plank. And here they lie for two full weeks, with little enough food or water, scarcely venturing up on deck, no medical help, and barely enough air to breathe. They feel sick, weak and emotionally jaded. They are beset by a deep mental and physical exhaustion which is akin to the approaches to death itself. There is only one tiny, slim thread of 'hope' which binds them to life -- and that is the thought that they will soon set foot on the soil of the Holy Land itself. They too ask the question over and over again inwardly, but with profound desperation: "How much further? How much longer the journey?"

All at once, a whisper scurries round the ship. Land is visible -- but not just land. No, this is the coast of Palestine -- its lights beckoning and winking from the shore. And now a seeming miracle occurs. These world-weary, parched, almost starving voyagers of a moment ago suddenly seem to revive. They stretch their limbs, and bowing their heads low they rise from their wooden plank beds. They climb to the upper deck - breathing in the fresh sea air for the first time in weeks...

Can we possibly then plumb the utter depths of disappointment of these survivors of the worst that human life had to offer, when, nearing the coast of the Holy Land - -almost, it seemed to them but a stone's throw away -- they were driven back... Utter silence reigned on deck in stark contrast to the noise and commotion of a little while ago. Yes, they were sailing again, but this time to an unknown, undesired destination. In truth, their destination held little interest for them -- they felt finally and utterly emptied of all hope.

WELCOME TO CYPRUS

Finally, the ship reached Cyprus. Disembarking on the island, they were loaded into army trucks and transported across a rocky terrain. At last, the trucks ground to a halt. They were in a barren plain, wide stretches of sand lay ahead. And what was this? Barbed wire enclosures, military towers, guards. It looked for all like a concentration camp. Almighty God, had they survived the inferno that had wiped out one-third of the Jewish nation, sailed halfway across the world on perilous seas, starved, retched, waited long nights only to be imprisoned again? It seemed to them that there was truly no place on God's earth where 'the Jew' was to be allowed to live as a free, proud human being. The one place where they had sought true freedom had been denied to them -- and now they had been brought to what was (for all intents and purposes) a prison camp...

But life had to be continued -- and all the attendant problems of daily living now rose to the fore. Not that there was much to be done -- no, hardly anything at all. There was no home to keep clean, no furniture, no gardens or fields to cultivate, no books to read. Nothing in short, to occupy the long hours between waking and sleeping that lay stretched ahead of them like a desert. Frugal meals were cooked in the general kitchen. But pangs of hunger often dispersed any more profound sentiments, such as frustration and longing for freedom...

Thus, the days dragged on without proper tasks or duties. The long hours were filled with the unbearable tension of waiting as if coiled like a spring in readiness to be released. Soon, soon, they thought -- staring out from behind their barbed wire enclosures -- the future would begin...

ROSH HASHANA 1946

Amongst the thousands of internees held in this place, there were about 850 observant Jews... As they had no seniors with them, they were clearly guided by memories that had accompanied them from their early childhood years and they did all they could to revive the meaning of these stored-up recollections of traditional Judaism. They were most scrupulous with regard to all food that was offered to them, ensuring that the highest standards of kashrus had been observed. They spent their days learning and teaching.

Their prayer-services were a strange mixture of elements characteristic of yeshiva boys and more modern Jews. In this sand-covered camp with so many being crowded into one tent, with no proper washing facilities, with no boxes or cases in which to keep belongings, they stood nevertheless on Rosh Hashanah in white shirts, white trousers almost sparkling with a neatness as if they had all come out of a mother's fresh linen drawer.

But, in fact, there was no mother anywhere, nor drawers either, only a burning heat, one cold water tap for each group, one piece of soap fortnightly, to be used for personal needs and laundry, and certainly no ironing facilities. But they learned to put a wet shirt under the straw mattress and sleep on it and this would do the trick of replacing ironing. A moral vigor was radiating from this minyan and the breeze of freshness was mingled with old chassidic fervor in an endeavor to find their own way within the new circumstances.

...[For education], they organized a Cheder and a yeshivah. Rav Kutner was leading them on. He was a man tall and erect like a tree. He looked as if nothing could move him anymore. He was a father of eight children and they, together with their mother, were no more. His life is now devoted to one thing only -- to teaching orphan children who were now under his personal care. This was his answer to the cruel loss of his young children that he had suffered -- to take care of children bereft of their parents. When asked by a visitor why he maintained this intensity of learning from five o'clock in the morning (when he had the whole day in front of him), he answered: "God took eight from me -- I return eighty to Him."

WEDDING IN THE CAMP

A few days after Rosh Hashanah 1946 a wedding was celebrated in their circle. The young bride who owned no one in the world except her friends, and the young man who owned no one in the world except his friends, were led under the chupah by their friends' love and loyalty.

The bride was decorated with everything a bride can shine with, and she was seated on a white covered chair on an elevated place in the tent. She was holding in her arms a bouquet of majestic looking white roses (artistically made from the only small paper that was issued for practical reasons in the various camps). An elaborately decorated [cake] covered with a glossy icing mixture, with almond lettering, graced the table. The biscuits (each person was given by the camp authorities one biscuit a week) had been put aside for weeks together with the weekly sugar ration, by everyone, to build up this luxurious looking wedding cake.

A woman in the camp had carried two large candlesticks in a knapsack on her back with her to Cyprus, instead of other things which could have been useful to her. This was what she felt she could least spare of all her possessions. Now they were sending forth on the wedding table a rich light, reminder of home and home comfort. The candles were burning and Greek Jews were playing merry tunes on their accordions.

The bride, with the vision of her martyred parents shaking her and steadying her, was led under the canopy by a crowd of girls, all of them lonely leaves of a once majestic tree. A tallis was held high in the air, and in the night in the camp of Cyprus they were wedded together, those two that were ready to start life together in the wretched tent of the wilderness, behind barbed wire.

And he brought her into the tent that was two yards long and two yards wide, with no floor but sand, no furniture, and only one orange box covered with a white table-napkin from somebody's old home, lit by a candle from a silver candlestick, and it was as if -- as it is said from Biblical times -- "The presence of God came down to rest on the tent and God's protection hovered over it."