Israel Matzav

Feiglin demands Turkey apologize for mass murder of Jews

I'm sure the Turks will deny responsibility, but MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud) is demanding an apology for the mass murder of nearly 800 Jewish refugees from Europe, who were passengers on a ship that was torpedoed and sunk off Istanbul in February 1942.

The merchant vessel Struma left the Romanian port of Constanta in December 1941 at the initiative of the New Zionist Organization and the Betar Zionist youth movement. Its 781 passengers hoped to sail to Mandatory Palestine despite British-imposed Jewish immigration quotas, and escape the fascist regime of Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu.

The ship docked in Istanbul on December 16, 1941, due to engine failure. Waiting at the port, the Struma’s passengers learned the British would not give them visas to enter Mandatory Palestine and that they could not disembark in Turkey.

After a 10-week impasse between British and Turkish diplomats over the refugees, during which the Jewish community of Istanbul provided them with food, the Struma was towed into the Black Sea. The vessel was abandoned about 16 kilometers from the shore. On February 24, 1942, the Soviet Submarine Shch-213 torpedoed the ship, which sank quickly.

The only survivor of the Struma’s sinking was a 19-year-old refugee, David Stoliar. The ship’s wreck has yet to be found.

The Brits ought to apologize for that one as well. Which one do you think is more likely to apologize? (Answer: Neither). 

Labels: Holocaust, Jewish refugees, mass murderer, Turkish obsession with Israel

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:27 PM