Czech Subjects Interned in Mauritius, 12 August 1941

This database contains records of 299 Czech Jews interned on Mauritius, 1941-1945.

Background

Prior to the arrival in Haifa of the immigrant ships Pacific, Milos, and Atlantic, in November 1940, the British government announced that all further arrivals of refugees without entry permits would be deported to "another British colony," which turned out to be Mauritius, off the south-east coast of Africa.  About 1,800 people from the Pacific and Milos were loaded on the old French liner Patria.

On 23 Nov 1940, an explosion occurred on the Patria, blowing a hole in the side of the ship which capsized.  Over 250 people were killed in this disaster.  The Haganah had smuggled a bomb on board with the intention of disabling the engines.

On the initiative of Winston Churchill, the survivors of the Patria were permitted to remain in Israel, but the other arrivals, including those on the Atlantic, which arrived on 24 Nov 1940, were deported.  They, including the 299 people on this list, remained in Mauritius until August 1945 when they were repatriated to Palestine.

Database

This database includes 299 records of Czechs interned on Mauritius.  The fields for this database are as follows:

• Record # (See Note A below)
• Name (Surname + Given name)
• Gender
• Date of Birth
• Place of Birth
• Home Community
• Profession
• Notes (See Note B below)
• Czech Military Rank
• Comments

Note A (Record #s): Series 1-132: Single men Series 200: Single women Series 300: Married couples

Note B (Note abbreviations): P: passport CC: cert. of citizenship BC: cert. of birth MC: cert. of marriage HC: home certificate IC: identity card mil.cert.: military certificate DC: driver's certificate

Acknowledgments

The information contained in this database was indexed from the files available from the Foreign Office files at the British National Archives (FO 371/29161/p103-133).  Paul Silverstone compiled the list.

In addition, thanks to JewishGen Inc. for providing the website and database expertise to make this database accessible.  Special thanks to Warren Blatt, Avraham Groll, and Michael Tobias for their continued contributions to Jewish genealogy.  Particular thanks to Nolan Altman, coordinator of Holocaust files.

Nolan Altman
Coordinator - Holocaust Database
May 2011

Searching the Database

This database is searchable via JewishGen's Holocaust Database and the JewishGen Austria-Czech Database.