Re: Polemi Concentration Camp - Political Discussion

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Jimgward
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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Cyprus also had detention camps for Jews fleeing Europe to Israel. Jews who had suffered at the Nazis’ hands, were then detailed in camps by the British. Ships were confiscated and some sunk. People died.
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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Jimgward wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 2:27 pm Cyprus also had detention camps for Jews fleeing Europe to Israel. Jews who had suffered at the Nazis’ hands, were then detailed in camps by the British. Ships were confiscated and some sunk. People died.
https://cyprus-mail.com/2016/11/13/emot ... rn-cyprus/
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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Thanks for that - very moving - the thought of incarceration after escaping Germany, must have been heartbreaking....
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

Post by jeba »

Jimgward wrote: Fri Feb 22, 2019 5:11 pm Thanks for that - very moving - the thought of incarceration after escaping Germany, must have been heartbreaking....
Still better than being returned. This is what the Swiss did (unless the refugees had little children with them). A few weeks ago a Jewish professor (can´t remember his name) held a speech in the German Parliament telling his story on occasion of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. His parents fled from occupied France to Switzerland. They didn´t know about this Swiss policy so they left him in the care of a monastry where he was hidden by nuns. They were caught by Swiss border police and handed over to German authorities only to be deported and murdered in Auschwitz.
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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Clearly they have done research, and are posting links to prove it. Are you trying to claim that people didn't die?
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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Hudswell and I are both trying to rationalise what actually happened. It is wrong to judge it by todays norms. This all happened under very different corcumstances, the British forces were involved in a very unpleasant guerilla war in which they were being sniped at, ambushed or even led into an ambush situation by EOKA, including some locals who were also supposed to be working for British Forces like drivers, keeping them safe.Since these ‘freedom flughters’ (or terrorists) had no scruples, and were killing not only British soldiers, but their dependants, women and even a child, it is small wonder that when caught they were not always gently handled. But they were not treated the way Nazi’s treated prisoners in concentration camps. The camps were only used for a very short period. There was a nasty episode where i understand the Police Station at Stroumbi was attacked and several policemen slaughtered.

Why do certain people want to keep resurecting past troubles on this island, which would be best just consigned to the history books?

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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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Any assumption that I was not well informed on the topic is simply untrue. Having read the excellent Leon Uris books, one or two of which discuss the formation of Israel from escapees of Pograms in Russia, using funds largely from the US, purchasing land from Palestinians, inspired me to read a lot about the Exodus of the Jews after WW2. I might even know more on the subject than commentators who disparage me. It is very emotive and difficult and the politics of the world at that time were more screwed up than ever.

As a side note, Cyprus was at one stage proposed as the Jewish Free State after WW2.
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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Hudswell wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:39 am Yes people died, if we are talking about the detention centres for the Jewish Immigrants...the camps were open for a number of years, and over 2000 children were born. These were not concentration camps and to imply as such is simply wrong. If you care to read the link I posted it may give you an understanding of why people were being detained, the politics of the time were extremely complicated and once the State of Israel was formed in 1948, detainees were taken there.

No, you are wrong. Concentration camps existed before the Nazis used them. This is the definition of a Concentration Camp:

a place in which large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labour or to await mass execution. The term is most strongly associated with the several hundred camps established by the Nazis in Germany and occupied Europe 1933–45, among the most infamous being Dachau, Belsen, and Auschwitz.

Here is another definition:

a guarded compound for the detention or imprisonment of aliens, members of ethnic minorities, political opponents, etc., especially any of the camps established by the Nazis prior to and during World War II for the confinement and persecution of prisoners.

Both the above definitions apply to Polemi Concentration Camp and the Concentration Camps that existed in Cyprus in the 40s. Nobody is claiming that they were like Auschwitz. But to claim that they weren't Concentration Camps is just plain wrong.
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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If you read accounts of Jews who were detained off ships and taken to Cyprus and imprisoned, it was compared with detention in Germany. No executions occurred, it was not like a German concentration camp, inn the slightest, but it was imprisonment in horrendous conditions. Little humanitarian consideration from the forces, for e peoples fleeing hell.
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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I don't care what your article calls them. They are concentration camps. If you can read the definitions I published and not call them concentration camps then you are basically just plain wrong.

But this is a silly argument over semantics.
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Re: Polemi Concentration Cam

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Exactly! So why are some Brits so keen to talk down their own country, puzzles me. No one apart from Hudswell and I seek to stand up to all the accusations about mistreatment at our (British) armed forces hands. There is little realisation that conditions in Cyprus were generally more primative in the 1950’s and 60’s than they are now. The roads were poor, communications in outlying villages were poor and sometimes very difficult to establish and maintain.No computers, internet and social media to complicate things.Cyprus was a v different, and dangerous place to work.
Even now most parts of Cyprus haven’t sorted out the sewage system to accept toilet paper in 2019!
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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Its not about talking down the UK. But also not about denying the mistakes of the past. Recognition is important. I will talk the positives of the UK. I am British and happy to be so. But I also won’t deny that Britain has made loads of mistakes and that unfortunately the armed forces has been the mechanism for foreign policy all too often and in many cases mistakes were made.

We have done great humanitarian things, where the UK policy has allowed. Not always and I am sure the forces would have wanted to do more. However, there’s no denying that Britain has perpetrated more atrocities than most, since we did once have an empire.
Last edited by Jimgward on Sat Feb 23, 2019 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Polemi Concentration Cam

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Kili01 wrote: Sat Feb 23, 2019 4:59 pm Exactly! So why are some Brits so keen to talk down their own country, puzzles me. No one apart from Hudswell and I seek to stand up to all the accusations about mistreatment at our (British) armed forces hands. There is little realisation that conditions in Cyprus were generally more primative in the 1950’s and 60’s than they are now. The roads were poor, communications in outlying villages were poor and sometimes very difficult to establish and maintain.No computers, internet and social media to complicate things.Cyprus was a v different, and dangerous place to work.
Even now most parts of Cyprus haven’t sorted out the sewage system to accept toilet paper in 2019!
Dee
Proberbly because most Brits. on here arnt brain washed into thinking everything Britain does is good and everything Johny Foreigner does is bad, thankfully unlike you two, most Brits on here can weigh things up fairly and after hearing both sides make their own minds up, your little unnecessary pop about Cyprus's backward toilet system, could of come out of a 1950s Pathe news reel, it seems that you two are stuck there. Never mind at least you have each other for support
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp

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Not true Capt Mainwarin, I've been inside a Cyprus coffee shop no more then two or three times in all the years I've been here. Not true yet again about me not saying anything bad about Cyprus, take a look at my posts, I put the blame on Cyprus and the other three party's to the conflict, so please spare us the being biased lectures, your the last person to talk about being even handed... Cheers.
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Re: Polemi Concentration Camp - Political discussion

Post by Dominic »

I have split this topic so the political discussion can continue elsewhere from the blog post.
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