Wooden Relief – Moses and the Tablets of the Law – Exiles of the Irgun and the Lehi at the Gilgil Detention Camp in ...

Wooden Relief – Moses and the Tablets of the Law – Exiles of the Irgun and the Lehi at the Gilgil Detention Camp in Kenya, 1948
A wooden relief of Moses carrying the Tablets of the Law, carved by a prisoner in the Gilgil detention camp in Kenya. [Gilgil], Kenya, 1948.
The relief, a well-executed artwork, depicts Moses standing on the mountain, one hand raised skywards and the other embracing the Tablets of the Law. Fixed on a wooden base, on which a Hebrew dedication is engraved: "To father, with love, from Mordechai. Kenya – 5708 [1948]".
In 1944, in light of the radicalization of the Irgun and Lehi activity and the repeated escapes from the detention camps in Palestine, the British decided to move their prisoners to camps in Africa, where they could not be assimilated into a sympathetic population. At first, 251 prisoners were sent to the Sembel camp in Eritrea in a secret and sudden military operation; with time, the British moved additional prisoners to the camps in Africa, their total number eventually reaching 439 people. From Sembel the prisoners were moved to the Carthage camp in Sudan, then to the Gilgil camp in Kenya. The conditions in these camps were harsher than those in the detention camps in Palestine – the prisoners suffered from lack of equipment and clothes, and from intolerable heat. The prisoners organized cultural and social activities in the camps, including lectures and classes, handicraft workshops and exhibitions displaying the works, sports activities and more. During the four years the camps had existed, small groups of prisoners tried to escape time and again, and some of them even succeeded in leaving Africa.
Approx. 13X12 cm; in a 20X23 cm frame. Unexamined out of the frame. Minor scratches. Additional rectangular wooden base beneath the base of the relief.
Provenance: The Rimon Family Collection.