Album of Photographs – The Children of the Detention Camps in Cyprus, 1946-1949

Album of Photographs – The Children of the Detention Camps in Cyprus, 1946-1949
An album with a collection of photographs from the Cyprus detention camps, documenting mainly the children's home in the summer camps in Karaolos. Cyprus, 1946-1949.
Approx. 80 photographs depicting the lives of the detainees in the Cyprus camps, documenting mainly the children's home that was established in the "summer camps" in Karaolos – camps 60-63 – and which was known as "Kaytanat Elez" (literally: Joy Summer School).
The photographs are mounted and captioned on the leaves. The captions, combined with the order of the photographs, form a comprehensive picture of the daily life of the children detained in Cyprus. Depicting the arrival at the camps and the establishment of the children's home under the supervision of nurses who were sent from Palestine and the children's lives – school classes and recesses, teachers and students, kindergartens, Purim celebrations, games and group activities, sea-bathing, meals, resting and bathing, the kitchen, gifts from school children in South Africa, birthday parties, and more. The photographs also depict various aspects of the life in the camps in general: assemblies, demonstrations for the right to immigrate to Palestine, various administrative buildings, the kitchen, the washrooms, the visit of the well-known Yiddish singer Sidor Belarsky to the camps, workers assembly, water supply by a JOINT-sponsored truck, and more.
The album ends with the evacuation of the camps and the immigration to Israel, emphasizing the tribulations the illegal immigrants experienced when leaving the camps and the exacting screening by UN representatives whose role was to ascertain the immigrants' age; the rules of immigration determined that men fit for service will not be permitted to enter the young state of Israel lest they give it an advantage over its neighbors.
Several of the photographs were commercially produced in the camps of Cyprus, including a photographic "Shanah Tovah" greeting card, signed in the plate "Foto Pais" and a photographic "Regards from Cyprus" greeting card (Hebrew), also bearing the inscription "Lehagshmah" (to fulfillment).
Photographs: size and condition vary. Good overall condition. Album: 16.5X26 cm. Good condition. Stains. Creases. Small tears to leaves and tissue guards, some repaired. New binding. Missing one photograph.
Provenance: The Rimon Family Collection.