The German Templer colonies in Palestine were the settlements established in Ottoman Palestine and Mandatory Palestine by the German Pietist Templer movement in the late 19th and early 20th century. During and shortly after World War II, these colonies were depopulated, and its German residents deported to Australia.[1]
At its height, the Templer community in Palestine numbered 2,000.[2]
In September 1939, the British Mandate government turned the German farming settlements of Sarona, Wilhelma, Bethlehem-Galilee, and Waldheim into large internment camps, while women and children from the German colonies in Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Haifa were temporarily permitted to remain in their homes under British and Jewish police surveillance. The four farming settlements were surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers, guarded by Jewish and Arab auxiliary police (Hilfspolizisten) under a British commandant with a small staff. German women, children, and elderly men lived in these camps... [In 1941] The British authorities decided to deport more than 600 persons from the younger German families to Australia... They were imprisoned as enemy citizens in detention camps at Tatura in Australia's Victoria state, where they remained until 1946–47... In April 1948, the Haganah raided the three internment camps of Waldheim, Bethlehem in the Galilee, and Wilhelma... On April 22, 1948, the evacuated Germans arrived in Cyprus... Six or seven internees, headed by Gottlob Loebert remained in Palestine to sell the Templers' stock and furniture, and see to the transport of the large luggage items of the deported internees. This group was ultimately taken to Cyprus as well. After seven to ten months of internment in Cyprus, the majority of them (Templers) were allowed to leave for Australia. Only a small number returned to Germany... Approximately fifty German settlers, mainly Templers and a few Sisters of the Kaiserswerth Order, requested not to take part in the evacuation, and were allowed to go to Jerusalem, where they moved into their former homes in the German Colony or into the German Hospice, where the Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo, under Mother Superior Emiliana, looked after them... From December 1948 to autumn 1950, the remaining Germans left Israel for good. The majority of them joined their families and relatives in Australia. Only a few returned to Germany.