This article explores the education, art, and rehabilitation of Jewish children and youth in the British detention camps in Cyprus between 1946 and 1949. Following the British decision to intercept and deport Holocaust survivors heading to Palestine, approximately 52,000 survivors—including 10,000 children and teenagers, many of them orphans—were confined to harsh, barbed-wire-enclosed camps on the island.
Despite severe material shortages, difficult living conditions, and forced idleness, Jewish aid organizations (principally the JDC), emissaries from Palestine, and the detainees themselves rapidly organized to establish robust educational and cultural systems. A major milestone was the establishment of the Youth Village in Camp 65 in January 1947, which at its peak housed over 2,000 children in an independent communal society. The curriculum combined Hebrew studies, Jewish history, and pioneering values with daily work shifts and vocational training.
Operating largely without professional psychological support or formal training in trauma care, the young instructors relied on intuition, empathy, and the restorative power of group life to help children look toward the future rather than dwell on past atrocities. Arts and crafts also played a vital, spontaneous role as a therapeutic outlet for expression and recovery. Real-time psychological assessments conducted in the camps, such as those by Dr. Paul Friedman’s team, ultimately highlighted the remarkable resilience of the youth and the profound impact of supportive mentorship in fostering healing and adaptation.
Ozacky Stern, Daniela. “Chapter 10 Education, Art, and Rehabilitation of Jewish Children and Youth in the Cyprus Detention Camps, 1946–1949”. Child Rehabilitation from the Holocaust to October 7, edited by Verena Buser and Boaz Cohen, De Gruyter, 2026, pp. 118-126.
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111676883-010
