The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Cyprus Operation, 1945-1949

The Cyprus Collection of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJJDC) offers a unique window into a pivotal period of 20th-century history by documenting the dramatic events in Cyprus against the backdrop of the birth of the State of Israel. Beginning in August 1946, the British government began deporting Jews who came to Palestine in violation of the White Paper of 1939 to the island of Cyprus. From August 1946 to February 1949, the deportees--primarily Holocaust survivors--lived behind barbed wire in 12 detention camps. During this period, approximately 53,000 Jews passed through the camps, 2,200 children were born in the camps, and 400 Jews died there. These Jewish refugees benefited from JDC’s extensive relief program, which provided supplementary food and clothing, medical care, educational/cultural activities, and vocational training.

The Cyprus Collection contains a wide array of materials that shed light on the lives of the deportees, including personal letters, group petitions, and newspapers published by the deportees themselves. It provides a rich account of the aid activities of the AJJDC in the British detainee camps, including correspondence with the British authorities, medical care, educational programs, welfare activity, immigration to Mandatory Palestine and Israel, and eyewitness accounts of conditions in the camps written by the AJJDC administration. It also consists of many documents that portray the activities of the British soldiers.

The Cyprus Collection materials are arranged into the following three subcollections: Administration, Organizations, Subject Matter. Files within the collection's ten record groups are primarily arranged alphabetically. Material in each file is in chronological order.