Israeli authorities identify Jewish refugee killed in Cyprus detention camp in 1948
The grave of Shlomo Haimson, killed during an escape attempt from Karaolos detention camp in Cyprus, has been identified in Haifa after 78 years.
Haifa, Israel. Israeli authorities have identified the grave of Shlomo Haimson, a Jewish refugee killed at a British detention camp in Cyprus in 1948, 78 years after his death.
Haimson was shot by camp guards during an attempted escape from the Karaolos detention camp in Famagusta in September 1948, several months after the establishment of the State of Israel.
Identification of the grave
Israeli authorities announced on Wednesday that Haimson’s grave had been identified at a cemetery in Haifa.
An investigation involving the Israeli army’s missing persons directorate, the military rabbinate, the defence ministry and the association of Jewish prisoners in Cyprus determined that he was buried in grave number 11, in the second row of the cemetery’s Jewish immigrant section.
Transfer of remains
Haimson was initially buried at a Jewish cemetery in Margo, a Jewish Cypriot farming settlement established in 1897.
The remains of those buried at the cemetery were transferred to Israel in 1970. Most were buried in Haifa without individual identification, leaving Haimson’s grave anonymous for decades.
British detention camps in Cyprus
The case dates to the British detention of Jewish refugees seeking to reach Mandatory Palestine.
Between 1946 and 1949, Britain detained more than 52,000 Jews in camps across Cyprus, many of them Holocaust survivors. The camps were established after British authorities began intercepting ships carrying Jewish refugees attempting to enter Palestine, then under British rule.
This news item was generated automatically by Cyprus Inform from publicly available materials. Report an error →
