Lost Jewish Babies of Cyprus
Yitzhak Teutsch, director of the American Joint Distribution Committee’s archives in Jerusalem, is trying to document more than 2,000 babies born to Jewish refugees interned in Cypriot camps between 1946 and 1949.
The infants’ parents had been on their way to Israel after World War II when the British seized their ships and sent them to Cyprus. Until now, around 65 years later, no comprehensive list of the children’s names and other details has been found.
“My theory is that someone decided, for some reason, to throw that list away,” says Teutsch. “Perhaps they thought it wasn’t important, or maybe nobody knew the camps would be in operation for so long and consequently the relevant documentation wasn’t saved.”
The Joint’s Jerusalem archives hold records of its activities to help Jews worldwide since its establishment at the beginning of the last century. But only a handful of portfolios relate to the Jews in Cyprus.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
