Paul Calvert spoke with Rosie Ross, a representative of Love Never Fails

Atlit Detention Camp

The Atlit Detention Camp held illegal immigrants who between the years 1934-1948, were transported from Europe and Arab countries to Israel's shores in spite of the British blockade. Many were survivors of the Holocaust. Once they arrived, they were detained in camps. Paul Calvert spoke with Rosie Ross, a representative of Repairing the Breach, about a special reconciliation event being held at Atlit Detention Camp on 7th May and about the camps history.

Paul: Rosie, please could you give a brief outline of the history of the Atlit detention camp and also its special events being held there on the 7th May?

Rosie: Atlit detention camp is where the British authorities, under the British mandate, held many Jewish immigrants in Palestine, as it was called in those days. The Jewish people know it and knew it then as Eretz Yisrael, but under the British it was known as Palestine.

There were many immigrants seeking refuge in Palestine/Israel at that time. Many had escaped from the Holocaust and the British held these people in detention camps that had certain resemblances to concentration camps. The main camp that we are talking about is Atlit detention camp, which is situated just south of Haifa on the Mediterranean coast. But many Jewish people, 52,000 in fact, were sent away by the British to detention camps in Cyprus. There were also over 1,000 Jewish refugees who were sent away to what has been described as a prison in Mauritius.

I can tell you a little about the event that we are going to hold on May 7th. Over the years we as British Christians have held special reconciliation events at Atlit detention camp. We have come in sorrow and shame for the way in which our nation acted towards the Jewish people at that time in our history and so this is not the first event. There have been a couple of other events that have taken place back in 2005 and 2006, but we felt the need to hold this event because now more Jewish people are becoming aware that there is a considerable volume of British Christians who feel deeply sad about what happened and ashamed of what we did in that period. We are building relationship with Israeli's and we see that this whole period of history needs to be uncovered more, both in the churches in Britain and also in the nation in Britain. It's been a whole period that's been kept under cover and so few people in Britain know about this history. I think many people in Britain if they did know about the history would be deeply ashamed.

Disinfectant Unit

Paul: What stories have you heard about the British mandate and about these Jewish people trying to get into the country?

Rosie: We have got one particular man who we have got to know and he and his mother were on board one ship that the British held in the harbour. It was known as the Patria ship. His father was put on another ship and sent away to Mauritius to the prison camp there. He and his mother were on board the Patria ship when the Israelis seeking to disable the ship actually caused a terrible explosion, which ended up with 200 people dying from that ship. This man was a baby at the time and his mother thought and many others thought he'd been drowned, but miraculously he escaped. However although he escaped from death, he and his mother were then taken to Atlit detention camp and held there for a period before they were set free by the British.

Paul: Were there some people who came hoping to seek refuge in Israel, but were turned away and ended up dying in the Holocaust?

Rosie: I have heard that there were some who were turned back to Poland by the British and that they ended up going back to the camps, but I can't give you details of that. I certainly have heard that and that is recorded in one of the books that Israelis have written that I have a copy of in English.

Another story is of an Israeli who we have got to know and he was held in the Akko prison, the Jerusalem prison and in the Atlit detention camp. His crime at the age of 17 was that he was fighting with the Haganah, the pre-IDF (Israeli Defence Force). The reason he was fighting the British was because they were stopping all those immigrants, many of whom had come out of the Holocaust and were seeking refuge in Israel. He was trying to stop these ships being turned away from Haifa harbour by the British because he knew that the people that were in these ships were Holocaust survivors and that they were being turned away to prison camps in Cyprus. We will call them detention camps to give the British the benefit of the doubt, but if you read the description I think many would agree that they were like prisons. Anyway this gentleman was fighting with the Haganah and was trying to lay some mines to stop the British going down to Haifa port in order to stop them sending the Holocaust survivors away to these terrible camps in Cyprus. He was arrested and I think he spent two and a half years in the British detention camp and prison.

The barracks where 32 slept together

Paul: What will be happening on the 7th May, which incidentally coincides with the British elections? How significant do you see this?

Rosie: Well I think the Lord has arranged it that we will be having this event on the 7th May. I didn't plan it for British Election Day. It wasn't some publicity stunt on my part, it just happens to be a very good time for those in the Atlit detention camp because the children who would normally be going round the Atlit detention camp hearing the history of what Britain did are on holiday on that day so we had the opportunity to hold the event.

I feel it is very significant that people are coming over from Britain to participate in this event. We have a man called Lord Reading and his wife who will be speaking at this event and he will be expressing the deep sorrow and shame of many Christians and members of the British Jewish community at what happened during this period of British history. We do believe it is significant for Britain because we believe it's very significant that people in Britain take responsibility for our own history, because unless we do that we are set to repeat history. Some of those anti-Semitic attitudes that were very strong during the mandate we see continuing today in Britain. As we take a stand over what happened in the past, we also believe it's important in standing with the Jewish people today.

Paul: What response has there been so far to the event from Christians and Jews and members of the Parliament and the Knesset?