Voyage of the Struma

1941

December 7     David boarded a special sealed train in Bucharest with almost eight hundred other mainly Romanian Jews.  Upon their arrival in the port city of Constanta, he and the passengers were systematically looted by Romanian Customs House authorities of their possessions before they were herded aboard the Struma.         

December 12     David crawled into the upper bunk with two other men in the bow of the Struma as the vessel got underway.  The engine failed shortly after leaving port and had to be repaired at the expense of the passengers' gold wedding rings.  The sputtering engine would fail again and again the next two days. 

December 15     A Turkish military tugboat intercepted the Struma before it drifted into a mine field and towed it into the busy harbor of Istanbul where it was anchored under guard by police boats.  "It was a strict quarantine, flags and all," said David.

December 17     Observing the unfolding tragedy of the Struma, the American Consul General in Turkey telegraphed the U.S. Department of State about the arrival of the desperate passengers on the Struma, "most of whom are Jewish and 300 of whom are children."

December 21     Britain's Colonial Office, which had authority over Palestine, reviewed the plight of the Struma and decided against issuing visas to the passengers, and instructed Britain's ambassador to urge Turkey to send the ship back to the Black Sea.  Thus began two months of British intransigence.

December 25     In a second telegram to the U.S. State Department, the American Consul General noted the "deplorable" conditions and reported that "so far Turkish Government has declined to accept Turkish currency in payment of desperately needed foodstuffs and absolute necessary engine repairs."  David recalled the day: "Basically, we were starving."

December 26     In a third telegram seven pages in length, the American Consul General provided the U.S. State Department a detailed accounting of the arrival and ongoing plight of the Struma.    

December 27     The British ambassador informed Turkey's Foreign Ministry that no visas to Palestine would be granted to the refugees, and that the Turks should return the Struma to the Black Sea.  Already low on food and water, the passengers, restricted to the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions of the ship, languished, stateless.  "Nobody did anything about us at all.  Usually groups of Jews belong to something.  Unfortunately for Struma, mostly were, did not belong to any kind of group . . .  So nobody did anything about it either!" said David. 

1942

January 6     Turkish newspaper Taxvir-I Efkar reported "Jews in the Harbor Have Fallen Sick and Cold." The Jewish community in Istanbul, led by textile merchant Simon Brod, funneled limited supplies of food and water through the Turkish Red Crescent to the police for distribution to the passengers.

February 10     David recalled limited deliveries of food and water from shore after the captain of the Struma hoisted flags calling for relief.  He also remembered work by Turkish mechanics on the engine and that it was never repaired.

February 15     The British government gave in to mounting pressure, primarily from a sympathetic public, including the Jewish community in Palestine, the U.S. and the United Kingdom, and approved overland transit to Palestine of children, ages eleven to sixteen.  This would be exceedingly difficult on the parents of the children and unacceptable to Turkey.

February 19     The Turkish government refused to allow the Struma children onshore.  Britain would have to provide a ship for the children.

February 23     Shortly after noon, a Turkish military tugboat sidled up to the Struma.  Already suspicious that Turkey would force the Struma to return to Romania,  David and the passengers revolted against the police but were quickly repressed and forced below decks.  The American Consul General Samuel W. Honaker would later report in a February 27 telegram to the U.S. State Department what happened next:

(SECTION ONE)

I regret to confirm my (telegram) number 43, February 24, 4 p.m. and to report a most deplorable tragedy in which only one person (David Stoliar) of the 761 passengers on the S.S. STRUMA was saved.  According to unimpeachable sources the Turkish police boarded the STRUMA at 5 p.m., February 23, caused the (anchor) ropes to be cut and the vessel to be taken out of the port by a Turkish salvage tug.  The vessel was towed up the Bosphorus leaving the entrance at 10 p.m. and when approximately twenty-three miles into the Black Sea was cast adrift and abandoned without water, food and fuel.  It is reported that when the vessel left this port it was not in condition to be put to (sea).

At two a.m., February 24 Turkish shore guards at Riba, a point about 6 miles (from) the entrance to the Bosphorus on the Asiatic side say they saw a flash and that the STRUMA disintegrated completely.  When life boats reached the vicinity four persons were picked up, three of whom died of exposure.

(SECTION TWO)

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

It is believed in certain circles in Istanbul that the Germans had been bringing pressure upon the Turkish Government practically ever since the ship’s arrival in Istanbul to cause the vessel to leave this port hoping to provoke an incident which would have unfavorable repercussions in the United States and Great Britain.  In any event, the order to tow the vessel out of the port is said to have come from Ankara.  The position of the steamer STRUMA is said to have resolved itself by February 23rd into:

One.  Refusal of Turkish Government to allow vessel to remain at Istanbul longer without assurance that passengers would be allowed to proceed to some other country.

Two.  Refusal of British to grant visas to passengers for Palestine or other British territory.

Three.  Refusal of Rumanians to permit the passengers to return on account of their alleged irregular departure.  This is refuted by some passengers having passports and others being included in collective passport, besides other evidence.

(SECTION THREE)

It is understood that the Turkish Government notified British officials at noon February 23 that the STRUMA would be towed out into the Black Sea that afternoon.  Hurried action on the part of British officials to obtain a list of children, who might be sent to Palestine, met with no reply from Turkish officials and thereafter action on the part of Turkish authorities seems to have been precipitate.

It is understood also that Jewish Committee in Palestine had applied for permit for 761 passengers to enter Palestine to be deducted from allotment for first six months of 1942 but that High Commissioner refused, but later action seems to have been contemplated.

                                                                        HONAKER

February 25     Thirty hours after the sinking, even after the world had learned of the tragedy, David and the Struma's First Mate were still clinging to wreckage, awaiting a rescue effort that was never mounted.  First Mate Lazar Dikof sat back-to-back with David on a partially submerged bench attached to some decking and told him he was on deck watch and saw the telltale bubbles of a torpedo fired from the direction of the shore that sank the Struma.  “It’s only when people started drowning could that piece of deck was coming up, up, up.  So, they are seeing that there is wood there.  But at that time, because people were leaving it, you know, they were just freezing and disappearing, drowning,” said David.  First Mate Dikof died shortly before a coastguard crew of six "fished" David from the floating debris well after sunrise.  The coastguard nursed David in a seaside boathouse in the village of Sile.

February 27     The coastguard put David on a local bus bound for Istanbul.  He rode unaccompanied with a busload of farmers with their livestock and produce.  Upon arrival, he was taken to Haydarpasa Numune Hospital in Istanbul for treatment where he blurted to an inquisitive Swiss journalist, “My name is David Stoliar.  I was on the Struma.  It was blown up.  I think I am the only survivor."  David’s statement immediately gave the lie to a Turkish government report released days earlier by the Anatolian News Agency that nobody had survived.

March 6     Upon his release from the hospital, David was arrested by Turkish police and jailed for being an illegal alien in Turkey without a visa.  The British knew of David's plight but refused to grant him transit visas, despite public outcry in Palestine, America and the U.K.  Turkish businessman Simon Brod who had cared for the Struma during its ten weeks in quarantine, bribed police and paid for delivery of clothes and daily meals from a local restaurant to David.

March 21     The British acquiesced to public outcry and ended its policy of deterrence of Jews' escape from the Holocaust to Palestine.  They also decided to admit David and another passenger (who had miscarried and been hospitalized at the time of the sinking) on "humanitarian" grounds.  David however remained imprisoned, under Brod's protection, while the British dithered over the transit papers.     

April 22     David was released from prison to the custody of Simon Brod who took him to his home.  Of Brod, David said, “He was the first person after Struma that I could relate to – him.  And, he was, basically, my savior, you know?  He was the first person that came, took me from the police station, took me to his house, took me to the train station, made all the arrangements, paid for the railway ticket, and the car that was waiting on the other side (in Aleppo, Syria, to take David to Tel Aviv).  I didn’t have to pay anything.”

April 23     Simon Brod saw David off by rail to Syria and by car to Palestine.  David never saw him again.