The Jewish Question in the British Colonial Imagination: The Case of the Deportation to Mauritius (1940–45)

Abstract:In December 1940, 1,580 Jewish refugees who fled Nazi-controlled Europe survived a long journey to Haifa only to be deported by the British Mandate authorities in Palestine to the British colony of Mauritius. Using this case study, this article explores British perceptions of the Jewish Question during World War II. It builds on a transnational archive that includes British colonial records from Britain, Palestine, and Mauritius, together with memoirs, letters, diaries, and oral testimonies from the Jewish detainees and the local Mauritians who remember them. In doing so, it asks three interconnected questions: How did the British authorities perceive the Jews deported to Mauritius? How did the deportees perceive Mauritius, their new destination, and its local population? And how were the detainees received and perceived by Mauritians? This three-pronged inquiry invites an exploration of the ambiguity of attitudes toward Jewish refugees inside and outside British colonial frames.