Haapalah / Aliyah Bet

Dr. Joshua (Josie) Cohen was recruited by Habonim Dror to work in the refugee camps in southern France, to examine Holocaust survivors before boarding te Haapalah ships bound for Palestine.

Dr. Joshua (Josie) Cohen met Exodus 1947 Commander, Yossi Harel, and Captain, Ike Aronowitz, at a camp in Bondal, and was recruited ­to serve as the ship’s official doctor.

Dr. Joshua (Josie) Cohen set up impromptu clinics on every deck of Exodus 1947, to care for more than 4,500 passengers, including 655 children.
The only professional assistance he received was from a nurse from kibbutz Afikim, and a medic from the American crew.
Dr. Cohen ran a first aid course for the doctors and nurses among the passengers, to prepare them for the voyage, but when they couldn't understand him, he switched to Yiddish, and somehow managed to communicate.
There were three births on board during the week-long voyage, and o mother required a Caesarean section; she died, but the baby was saved, while the mother was buried at sea.

Dr. Joshua (Josie) Cohen negotiated with the British doctors to have as many wounded as possible sent by ambulance to Haifa, but most of the passengers on Exodus 1947 were forced onto prison ships, and sent back to Europe.

Dr. Joshua (Josie) Cohen pointed at Lenny Sklar, and British soldiers took him off Exodus 1947, and took him to a tent where an
English doctor looked at his wound, called it an upper cranial wound, and had him tranferred back to the ship.
He was transferred aboard one of the deportation ships.