Taken just weeks apart in early 1947, these two photographs form a striking visual record of hope, defiance, and the struggle for freedom aboard the Aliyah Bet vessel S/S Ulua—renamed Haim Arlosoroff upon approaching the coast of Mandatory Palestine.
I. The Wake of Departure (Late January 1947)
In the first photograph, captured shortly after the S/S Ulua departed Trelleborg, Sweden, on January 24, 1947, a group of young Jewish Holocaust survivors gathers near the stern against the biting winter chill. Bundled in heavy overcoats, jackets, and headscarves, they huddle together for warmth while the ship’s white wake cuts across the dark northern waters behind them. Despite the cold, the atmosphere on deck is filled with relief and youthful optimism. Having finally left behind the strict surveillance and bureaucratic containment of the Swedish transit camps, these young men and women—among them Lolek Majerowicz and Chaim Kozieniecki—smile and laugh together, believing they are sailing directly toward a new, free life in Eretz Israel. There were 650 when they left Sweden. Most of them came to Sweden by the UNRRA White Boat mission during summer 1945.
II. The Clash off the Coast (February 1947)
The second photograph freezes the brutal reality that awaited them at the end of their voyage. Now renamed Haim Arlosoroff and carrying over 1,300 survivors from Sweden and Italy, the vessel is pinned down off the coast of Haifa by the towering steel hulls of British Royal Navy destroyers. The open, carefree deck of January has vanished, replaced by intense claustrophobia and defiance. Packed shoulder-to-shoulder along the railings, the passengers brace against the churning surf, wielding long wooden poles to repel British boarding parties while a white cross pennant flies above the crowd. Twice, the survivors successfully fought back the marines—a clash in which Chaim Kozieniecki was wounded—before the surrounded ship steered straight toward the Bat Galim beach and ran aground, ending their journey in the detention camps of Atlit and Cyprus.
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| February 24, 1947. Trelleborg harbor. Sweden. On the right of the quay, the chartered SJ train with third-class carriages. To the left is the stern of the refurbished S/S Ulua. In the background, survivors embark on the ship. (SHMA Archives, photographer unknown). |
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| Bat Galim, Haifa (February 1947). Surrounded by British Royal Navy destroyers, the Haim Arlosoroff (formerly S/S Ulua) steers straight toward the Bat Galim shoreline to run aground, allowing survivors from Sweden and Italy to attempt reaching the coast before British marines seize the vessel. |
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Bat Galim, Haifa (February 1947). Surrounded by British Royal Navy destroyers, the Haim Arlosoroff (formerly S/S Ulua) steers straight toward the Bat Galim shoreline to run aground, allowing survivors from Sweden and Italy to attempt reaching the coast before British marines seize the vessel.
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| Again behind Barbed Wire. Cyprus (1947). Having survived the Nazi camps and escaped the bureaucratic containment of post-war Sweden, the young S/S Ulua passengers endure months of British detention in Cyprus before finally reaching the shores of Eretz Israel. |
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| British Internment Camp, Cyprus (1947). Following the grounding at Bat Galim, the uninjured passengers—including Lolek Majerowicz and the 650 survivors from Sweden—were transferred to British detention camps in Cyprus, trading the post-war quarantine of Sweden for barbed-wire internment in the Mediterranean. |
