inside the camp, 2008 The camp at
Atlit, established by the
British government in the 1930s, was surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers. Many of the detainees during the 1930s and 1940s were Jewish refugees from
German-occupied Europe. At Atlit camp, the men were sent to one side, women to the other. They were sprayed with
DDT, then told to undress and enter the showers. In 1939–1948, tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants were interned here, men and women separated by barbed wire. Some internees stayed as long as 23 months.
WWII (camp active 1939-42) Some of the Palestine
Germans, including
Templers living in their own
colonies, who openly supported the
Nazis, were declared enemy nationals by the British authorities and were detained at Atlit prior to deportation. In November 1940, the British authorities decided to send 5000 immigrants to detention camps on
Mauritius. One of these deporting ships was the
Patria. To stop the deportation, the
Haganah, the Jewish underground militia in Palestine, exploded a bomb in the ship's hold on November 25. The size of the explosive charge had been seriously miscalculated, and the ship sank quickly. On board were 1800 refugees; 216 drowned in the disaster. The survivors from the
Patria were detained in Atlit and not deported to Mauritius. They were released after a few months. The
Darien II arrived with 800 refugees in March 1941. They were detained at the Atlit camp until September 1942, when the camp was shut down.
Post-WWII British camp (1945-1948) The Atlit camp was reopened in 1945 following
World War II, as more and more immigrants arrived in Palestine. Most of them were
Holocaust survivors from
DP camps in Europe who made the journey through the
Berihah and
Ha'apala ("Aliya Beth") clandestine immigration network. On October 10, 1945, the
Palmach (special forces unit of the Haganah) broke into the camp and released 208 detainees, who escaped.
Yitzhak Rabin, then a young officer, planned the raid and Nachum Sarig commanded it. Following this event, the British deported immigrants to
Cyprus internment camps. These camps operated from 1946 through the establishment of the
State of Israel.
Israel's wars (1948-49, 1967-70) During the
1948 Arab–Israeli War, Atlit detainee camp served as a
prisoner of war (POW) camp and civil internment camp for local Arabs.
POWs from the
1967 war including soldiers from
Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, as well as
Lebanese citizens were also held at Atlith camp. ==Museum==