Much to Learn

Owing to Patti’s generosity I’m currently reading Exodus by Leon Uris.

Exodus by American novelist Leon Uris is about the founding of the State of Israel. Published in 1958, it is based on the name of the 1947 immigration ship Exodus.

In 1956, Uris covered the Arab-Israeli fighting as a war correspondent. Two years later, Exodus was published by Doubleday. Exodus became an international publishing phenomenon, the biggest bestseller in the United States since Gone with the Wind. Uris had sold the film rights in advance.

The story unfolds with the protagonist, Ari Ben Canaan, hatching a plot to transport Jewish refugees from a British detention camp in Cyprus to Palestine. The operation is carried out under the auspices of the Mossad Le’aliyah Bet. The book then goes on to trace the histories of the various main characters and the ties of their personal lives to the birth of the new Jewish state.

A film based on the novel was directed by Otto Preminger in 1960 featuring Paul Newman as Ari Ben Canaan. It focused mainly on the escape from Cyprus and subsequent events in Palestine.

The old adage ‘the more I learn the more I realize how little I actually know’ applies here.

Only vaguely aware of the book Exodus, I certainly didn’t know that it told the true story of the British run Jewish detention camps in Cyprus post WWII.

Friends of Cyprus has more:

We came to learn that the British authorities held Jewish “illegal” immigrants in detention camps on Cyprus from 1946 to 1949. This policy was part of an effort to deter Jewish immigration to Palestine, under British control, as was Cyprus. During that time over 53,000 Jews passed through the barbed wire camps, held against their will, with a quota of only 1,500 per month permitted to leave Cyprus for Palestine.

The Jews considered illegal immigrants by the British were intercepted by British naval forces and turned back from the shores of Palestine and escorted to Cyprus or temporarily imprisoned in Palestine (Atlit) before being deposited in the camps of Cyprus.

The two major camps were Caraolos, north of Famagusta, and in Dekhelia, outside of Larnaca. The compounds stretched for several miles.

Anecdotes tell of Cypriots working in the camps, smuggling in potatoes to the undernourished internees, assisting in escapes from the camps through underground tunnels. Local Cypriots from laborers to doctors worked in the camps. Translators were British employees. The Jews were prisoners living in overcrowded tents and barracks under harsh conditions with inadequate food supply. The barbed wire camp was also a vibrant community with marriages, illness, deaths, and celebrations. 2,200 children were born in the camps during this period – pregnancy moved the family up on the Palestine waiting list.

Mind boggling. So some Jews went from the hellholes of German concentration camps to the hellholes of British camps…

The book is well written, the characters believable and the story engrossing; I highly recommend it, even though I’m not even halfway through yet… and who knows what else I’ll learn along the way…?