Struma disaster

The Struma was a ship commissioned by the Revisionist Zionist organizations in Romania , especially Betar , to carry Romanian Jews as illegal immigrants to British-controlled Palestine . Apart from the crew, there were approximately 790 passengers consisting of many Betar members but mostly of wealthy Romanian Jews who could afford to pay the high price of a ticket. The voyage had the approval of the Romanian government. Most of the passengers were not permitted to see the vessel before the day of the voyage, and when they finally saw it they were shocked to discover it was far worse than they had imagined. Sleeping quarters were extremely cramped without enough space to sit up, and there were only two lifeboats. They were not told that the engine was in even worse condition; it had been recovered from a wreck on the bottom of the Danube River. Several times after the Struma set sail from Constanta on the Black Sea on December 12 1941 , the engine gave out. After three days the ship was towed to Istanbul where it remained at anchor while secret negotiations were conducted over the fate of the passengers. The British government was determined to uphold its policy of refusing illegal immigrants entry to Palestine and urged the Turkish government to prevent the ship from sailing onwards, while the Turkish government refused to allow the passengers off the ship. After weeks of negotiation, the British agreed to honour the expired Palestinian visas possessed by a few passengers and these were allowed to continue overland. A few also managed to escape with the help of friends in high places, and one was admitted to an Istanbul hospital following a miscarriage. On February 12, the British agreed that the children aged 11-16 on the ship would be given Palestinian visas, but then a dispute broke out over the means of their carriage to Palestine. Britain refused to send a ship, while Turkey refused to allow them overland. While negotiation over this issue was still in progress, and without notifying Britain in advance, Turkey towed the Struma back into the Black Sea and abandoned it there on February 23. As the boat traveled along the Bosporus , many of the wealthy Turks who lived on the banks of the strait could hear the passengers' cries for help and see signs hung over the sides that read SAVE US in English and Hebrew. The engine would not start despite weeks of work that had been performed on it by Turkish engineers, and the ship drifted helplessly. On February 24, there was a huge explosion and the ship sank. Only one person survived, a man named David Stoliar who was found, clinging to the wreckage, by a rowboat sent out from one of the watchtowers maintained along the Turkish coast. Stoliar was imprisoned in Turkey for 6 weeks, then released and admitted to Palestine. Later he moved to Japan and then the United States. Later this was confirmed from several other Soviet sources. The submarine had been acting under secret orders to sink all neutral shipping entering the Black Sea in order to reduce the flow of strategic materials to Nazi Germany. In July 2000, a Turkish diving team found a wreck on the sea floor at approximately the right place, and announced that they had discovered the Struma. A team of Westerners later studied the wreck but could not positively identify it. On 3 September 2000 , a ceremony was held at the site to commemorate the tragedy. It was attended by 60 relatives of Struma victims, representatives of the Jewish community of Turkey, the Israeli ambassador and prime minister's envoy, as well as British and American delegates.

The Struma was a ship chartered to carry Jewish refugees from Axis -allied Romania to British-controlled Palestine during World War II . On 23 February 1942, with its engine inoperable, the ship was towed from Istanbul through the Bosporus out to the Black Sea by Turkish authorities with its refugee passengers aboard, where it was left adrift. Within hours, it was torpedoed and sunk by the Soviet submarine Shch 213 on 24 February, killing 768 men, women and children, with only one survivor. It has been called "largest naval civilian disaster of the war" although greater numbers of civilians perished alongside military personnel on larger ships like the Wilhelm Gustloff , Cap Arcona , RMS Lancastria and Junyō Maru .

ship title The Struma disaster was the sinking in February 1942 of a ship, MV Struma , that had been trying to take several hundred Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to Mandatory Palestine . She was a small iron-hulled ship of only 240 GRT that had been built in 1867 as a steam-powered schooner but had recently been re-engined with an unreliable second-hand diesel engine . Struma was only 148.4 ft (45 m) long, had a beam of only 19.3 ft (6 m) and a draught of only 9.9 ft (3 m) but an estimated 781 refugees were crammed into her. Struma ' s diesel engine failed several times between her departure from Constanţa on the Black Sea on 12 December 1941 and her arrival in Istanbul on 15 December. She had to be towed by a tug both to leave Constanţa and to enter Istanbul. On 23 February 1942, with her engine still inoperable and her refugee passengers aboard, Turkish authorities towed Struma from Istanbul through the Bosphorus out to the coast of Şile in North Istanbul . Within hours, in the morning of 24 February, the Shch-213 torpedoed her, killing an estimated 781 refugees plus 10 crew, making it the Black Sea's largest exclusively civilian naval disaster of World War II . Until recently the number of victims had been estimated at 768, but the current figure is the result of a recent study of six different passenger lists. Only one person aboard, 19-year-old David Stoliar , survived (he died in 2014). The Struma disaster joined the sinking of the SS Patria laden with Jewish refugees 15 months earlier as rallying points for the Irgun and Lehi revisionist Zionist clandestine movements, encouraging their violent revolt against the British presence in Palestine.

ship title The Struma disaster was the sinking on 24 February 1942 of a ship, MV Struma , that had been trying to take nearly 800 Jewish refugees from Axis-allied Romania to Mandatory Palestine . She was a small iron-hulled ship of only 240 GRT that had been built in 1867 as a steam-powered schooner but had recently been re-engined with an unreliable second-hand diesel engine . Struma was only 148.4 ft (45 m) long, had a beam of only 19.3 ft (6 m) and a draught of only 9.9 ft (3 m) but an estimated 791 refugees and 10 crew were crammed into her. Struma ' s diesel engine failed several times between her departure from Constanţa on the Black Sea on 12 December 1941 and her arrival in Istanbul on 15 December. She had to be towed by a tug boat to leave Constanţa and to enter Istanbul. On 23 February 1942, with her engine still inoperable and her refugee passengers aboard, Turkish authorities towed Struma from Istanbul through the Bosphorus out to the coast of Şile in North Istanbul . Within hours, in the morning of 24 February, the Shch-213 torpedoed her, killing an estimated 781 refugees plus 10 crew, making it the Black Sea's largest exclusively civilian naval disaster of World War II . Until recently the number of victims had been estimated at 768, but the current figure is the result of a recent study of six different passenger lists. Only one person aboard, 19-year-old David Stoliar , survived (he died in 2014). The Struma disaster joined that of SS Patria – sunk after Haganah sabotage while laden with Jewish refugees 15 months earlier – as rallying points for the Irgun and Lehi revisionist Zionist clandestine movements, encouraging their violent revolt against the British presence in Palestine.

1942 maritime attack in the Black Sea The Struma disaster was the sinking on 24 February 1942 of a ship, MV Struma , which had been trying to take nearly 800 Jewish refugees from the Axis member Romania to Mandatory Palestine . She was a small iron-hulled ship of only 240 GRT and had been built in 1867 as a steam-powered schooner but had recently been re-engined with an unreliable second-hand diesel engine . Struma was only 148.4 ft (45 m) long, had a beam of only 19.3 ft (6 m) and a draught of only 9.9 ft (3 m) but an estimated 781 refugees and 10 crew were crammed into her. Struma ' s diesel engine failed several times between her departure from Constanța on the Black Sea on 12 December 1941 and her arrival in Istanbul on 15 December. She had to be towed by a tug boat to leave Constanța and to enter Istanbul. On 23 February 1942, with her engine still inoperative and her refugee passengers aboard, Turkish authorities towed Struma from Istanbul through the Bosporus out to the coast of Şile , in North Istanbul . Within hours, on the morning of 24 February, the Shch-213 torpedoed her, killing 781 refugees and 10 crew, which made it the Black Sea's largest exclusively-civilian naval disaster of World War II . Until recently, the number of victims had been estimated at 768, but the current figure is the result of a recent study of six different passenger lists. Only one person aboard, the 19-year-old David Stoliar , survived (he died in 2014).