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Exodus (here leaving Sweden for Israel) from Sweden started less than 1 year after the arrival of the Holocaust survivors from the concentration camps. In May 1946 - the 1st organized group after the Holocaust from Sweden to Eretz Israel. |
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| Exodus (here leaving Sweden for Israel) from Sweden started less than 1 year after the arrival of the Holocaust survivors from the concentration camps. In May 1946 - the 1st organized group after the Holocaust from Sweden to Eretz Israel. Here is the stamp of entry at the port of Calais, France - May 17, 1946. |
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| Exodus. The biggest group of Holocaust survivors was the one that left Sweden on January 24, 1947 on the vessel called Ulua. 650 people left Trelleborg on that day heading to Haifa. Entry card (Entry information Card) of Madowicz Pola (L:2762) who came to Sweden from Lübeck. She traveled with a younger sister, Maria (L:2761) who was also an inmate in Bergen-Belsen. The green stamp 8 July 1948 is the entry date to Malmö. On the back of that card, there is information (from the Swedish police) about where she has been during her stay in Sweden. Everyone who was going with the S/S Ulua had to fill out the Exit Card. The historic date 24 January 1947 was stamped on it. The L-number can be found on Pola's Entry Form at the top right. The number was assigned just before the departure with White Boats from Lübeck during the summer of 1945. The Madowicz sisters came with the White Boat "Crown Princess Ingrid". |
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| May 15, 1946 list of 3 311 Holocaust survivors, who were in various places in Sweden. Probably they had a common desire, to leave Sweden for Eretz Israel. Note that 472 survivors were still in hospitals and sanatoria (Group IV). From Hachshara and Youth Aliyah in Sweden 1933-1948 by Emil Glück, Judith Diamond, Yaël Glick. The port of Trelleborg is marked at the bottom of the map. |
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| One of the pages is about the former patients from Örebro Emergency Hospital who were asked, most probably in December 1945 about future plans. 50% of them wanted to go "Till Palestina" - Eretz Israel. Some of them wanted to wait for the decision "until the Spring comes" or go to America. |
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| Exodus. Our oldest member in Israel, Holocaust survivor, Gad Ginosar turned 100 last month. Eli Nusbaum Sarah Eli Nusbaum gave him today the SHMA diploma (Swedish Holocaust Memorial Association) and the book The Liberated 1945. Gad left Sweden by boat to Belgium and thereafter in France, he embarked ship named after Theodor Herzl that sailed toward the coast of Eretz Israel. |
Exodus means the movement of a lot of people from a place. Exodus is the title of the second book of the Bible’s Old Testament in which the Israelites escape slavery in Egypt, but the term can refer to any sudden departure of a group of people.
"Exodus" from Sweden - I talked with Eli yesterday and I am trying to find other lists of passengers from 1946-1948 that left Sweden in the direction of Eretz. It is known that most of the trips were organized by the Halutz organization in Sweden with contact in Paris. Maybe their archives in Israel will give us more info. It is known that children groups were waiting for the re-birth of Israel but not all of them. Several Exodus Jews from Sweden went to DP camps and left together with others and came to Eretz as Maapilim (like Gad).
Our oldest member in Israel, Holocaust survivor, Gad Ginosar turned 100 last month. Eli Nusbaum gave him today the SHMA diploma (Swedish Holocaust Memorial Association) and the book The Liberated 1945. I also had the possibility to talk to Gad. He belongs to the Maapilim group that tried to enter Eretz on the boat named after Theodor Herzl. 2 600 Maapilim, from two camps in France and Belgium, embarked a ship named after Theodor Herzl, and despite British efforts to prevent her departure, she sailed toward the coast of Eretz Israel. The boat was on 13th of April 1947 stopped by the British navy at a distance of 16 miles from the shore of Tel-Aviv. When the British destroyers stopped her Maapilim put the famous banner on the ship’s hull that read: "YOU JOINED THE NAVY TO CHASE ORPHANS" and: "HITLER DESTROYED OUR FAMILIES, DO NOT DESTROY OUR HOPE "
Today, I wrote to my Maapilim friends:
Right! However, we can wait for the results I asked for at the Swedish Riksarkivet. Until this time we could just make a "private list"! Just single names of persons brought to Sweden that thereafter came to Eretz with the limit of the arrival year like 1950.
It is important for the future to describe "All the ways that led to Eretz" after the Holocaust. I know several that left Sweden for Poland and wanted thereafter to leave for Israel but were stopped until 1956. Some who left for Poland from Sweden were helped by the Polish "Open Gate" action after the Kielce pogrom. I feel strongly that we are the last that can describe it!
They should be also mentioned, maybe as "Stopped on their way"!
As we already know, also from the "Ulua list", the main part of the Holocaust survivors that came to Sweden were women. The percentage of the men on Ulua was exactly 30%. We know from the Glück list that there were 3,311 Jews who were most probably aiming to go to Israel. The wish to go to Israel was found on the documents from Örebro Emergency Hospital, see the page with 50%. There are no official data on how many Jews that arrived in Sweden at the end of WWII stayed in Sweden. Exodus Jews - leaving Sweden, with Exodus, I mean big groups were about 1100. By Ulua 650 and approx. 3 x 150 to the European coast. So it is likely that the number that arrived in Eretz from Sweden, legally and illegally is approximately 1100. Several made a stop-over in the "home countries" and in the DP camps and came a bit later.
Groups to Sweden 1945-1946
- Kinder transports
- Danish Jews after October 1943
- White Bus Jews
- White trains Jews
- White boat Jews
- Coal- and fishboat Jews after May 1945 incl. post Kielce pogrom Jews
The major focus of research is to find the Main paths of Jews to/from Sweden, through the years, who went to Eretz.
- - Concentration camp (last place before WWII ended)
- - Sweden
- - Europe (port of arrival)
- - DP camp
- - Mediterranean coast (port of departure)
- - (Cyprus)
- - Eretz
- Marriages (Couple meeting) of Maapilim - Sweden - DP camps - Cyprus - etc ike Lola Preis and Jakub
- Children born or "Made in Cyprus or France or Italy"
To start with the path Sweden - Europe should be described - it is partly done on Jimbao. Two trips to Calais, one to Antwerpen, and the Ulua trip. Several on the first trip Swedish ocean liner to the USA.
Until now the key focus and scope was on the paths of Maapilim who arrived to Eretz and all those who were detained in Cyprus.
Until we met Roman I knew nothing about Jews passing Sweden in this period. Now we know a lot about Ulua Maapilim and a little about others like Gad who made it via France.
So the following paradigm is probably flawn: "out of 15000 came about 700 to Eretz and the rest stayed or spread".
1. Your rough estimate: how many Jews from Sweden became Maapilim, trying to come to Eretz prior to independence.
2. Other than "Belgium" what is known about their routes towards Eretz?
3. What lists, out of the many "Sweden lists" in Arolsen, USHMM and Roman's lists from Sweden, should we put into the sieve (sift them).
Notes -
A. Since we sorted out Ulua Maapilim by port of origin, we have hundreds of families to contact and their documents to complete. The bottleneck of locating families in Israel is in the hands of the Ulua team at a very low priority - I no longer pass them phone numbers since they do not call.
2023 their focus was the website and the coming year the memorial. Maapilim information took a backseat.
B. My "descendent contact info locator" works only in Israel.
C. My personal priority this year is Maapilim in Italy and Shurot HaMeginim.
I compiled names and Hachshara camps for over 260 groups(kibbutz) in Italy and worked on lists of members, maps to ships, obtaining group photos and stories of routes from testimonies and books..
This means that there are 260 groups like Sharsheret in Italy and we have not found yet the names of all groups in Sweden!
