After 78 years, remains of Jewish man killed escaping British camp in Cyprus found

The remains of a Jewish man who was killed while trying to escape a British internment camp in Cyprus in 1948, and who had been considered missing since, have been located at a graveyard in Haifa, the military said Wednesday.

Shlomo Haimson, born in Romania in 1930, tried to immigrate to Israel after World War II with his mother, Ita, and his girlfriend, Perla, aboard the illegal immigration ship SS Pan York (Kibbutz Galuyot).

The ship was intercepted by the UK’s Royal Navy, and its passengers were deported by British authorities to internment camps in Cyprus.

At the detention camp, Haimson joined the “Defenders’ Ranks,” which operated in the camps under the auspices of the Haganah paramilitary, and was then trained to become an IDF fighter after immigrating to Israel.

Upon the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Haimson’s mother and girlfriend were released and immigrated to Israel as part of a group designated to establish Kibbutz Magen. In September 1948, Haimson learned that his daughter, Miriam, had been born, and decided to escape from the camp and immigrate to Israel.

On the night of September 29–30, 1948, Haimson and eight of his friends broke through the camp fences and attempted to escape, but were spotted by the camp guards, who opened fire at them. Haimson was killed, and his friends were captured and returned to the camp.

The following day, Haimson was buried by British authorities in a Jewish cemetery in the Cypriot town of Marathounta, but the gravestone placed bore no inscription.

In November 1970, the bodies of 163 individuals, 120 of whom were unidentified, were exhumed from the Marathounta cemetery and brought to Israel for burial at a special section at the Kfar Samir Cemetery in Haifa.

The military said Wednesday that an investigation it launched in 2023 had led to the conclusion that Haimson’s remains were brought to Israel in 1970 and were buried in grave number 11, row 2, in the Cyprus Detainees section of the cemetery in Haifa.

On Tuesday night, the IDF’s defense attaché in Brazil, Col. Uri Ron, updated Haimson’s family, including his daughter Miriam, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who currently live in Rio de Janeiro, on the findings.

The IDF said that in the near future, an official ceremony will be held to add a headstone with Haimson’s name to the grave in Haifa.