Cyprus

As part of the British Empire, Cyprus joined the war against Nazi Germany in September 1939. In 1940, the Cyprus Regiment made up of volunteers from all the island’s ethnic groups and with a total size of 30,000 was formed and subsequently served in various European and Mediterranean theatres of war. The Republic of Cyprus became independent in 1960. After intercommunal conflicts between majority Greek Cypriots and minority Turkish Cypriots, in 1974 a Greek-backed military coup and a subsequent Turkish invasion resulted in the partition of the island into the majority Greek Republic of Cyprus in the south and an internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (founded in 1983) in the North. The Republic of Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004.

A Jewish presence in Cyprus is attested reaching back to Classical Antiquity. About 120 Jews lived there in 1901. During the 1930s and the Second World War, hundreds of Jewish refugees from Nazi-controlled areas passed to and through Cyprus. Between 1946 and 1948, the British authorities set up a detention camp in Cyprus for Holocaust survivors illegally trying to enter nearby Mandatory Palestine; 50,000 were detained in this manner but left for the newly independent State of Israel in 1948. Today, about 6,000 Jews reside in the Republic of Cyprus permanently.

In 1960, approximately 500 Roma ("Athingani" / "Tsingani") lived in Cyprus. For this country there are no sufficient findings on the history of Roma during the Second World War. EHRI would be pleased to receive any information.

The State Archives were established as the Cyprus Public Record Office [Κρατικό Αρχείο] in 1978 and re-named as the State Archives in 1991. It is a service under the Ministry of Justice and Public Order. Further investigation into other archives in Cyprus remain necessary to establish any Holocaust-related holdings elsewhere.