Turkey 'Celebrating' the sinking of the Struma.

Turkey 'Celebrating' the sinking of the Struma. (JPost).

The excesses of chutzpah never cease to amaze. A galling example was provided by Turkey’s purportedly big-hearted recent memorial for the 768 Jewish refugees (including 103 babies and children) who drowned off its coast on February 24, 1942, when WWII raged.

Turkey’s official line nowadays is that the Struma was only anchored in its waters “for a few days.” In fact, it was a 75-day (from December 12 to February 24) spectacle of apathy and inhumanity in which the Turkish role was most prominent.

Ankara adamantly refused to let anyone off the crippled vessel except for the handful who had British entry visas to Eretz Yisrael. Turkey’s premier argued that “Turkey cannot be expected to serve as a refuge or surrogate homeland for people unwanted anywhere else.”

The Turkish government, nonetheless, pitilessly ordered the condemned Struma tugged out to the Black Sea. Hundreds of truncheon-wielding Turkish policemen were dispatched to the ship on February 23. They viciously clubbed passengers below deck. Despite resistance from the refugees, the anchor was cut, the Struma was dragged out and was left paralyzed, to drift without supplies or a drop of fuel.

On February 24, an explosion ripped it apart. A Soviet submarine, Shchuka-213, patrolled northeast of the Bosporus. Stalking Axis craft, it torpedoed the wobbly Struma, which sank in minutes. It is estimated that as many as 500 were killed outright by the blast. The rest flapped feebly in the waves, till they expired of wounds, fatigue and hypothermia

The Jerusalem Post scorns the first ever Turkish commemoration of the sinking of the Struma, and wonders what is behind this “pageant of ostensible solidarity.”

The editor suspects that “rather than voicing genuine remorse, Turkey’s memorial was a cynical ploy designed to disguise other sentiments,” and concludes: “For Israelis, more than anything, the Struma powerfully illustrates what happens when Jews rely on others’ goodwill.” Hmmmm.......Bibi should never had apologized to this 'person'. Read the full story here.

Turkey 'owes' apology for deaths of The Struma disaster.

Turkey 'owes' apology for deaths of The Struma disaster.(HD).
Ankara must show the courage to apologize for its role in the Struma tragedy in which 764 people died in the Black Sea after being neglected by Turkey while escaping from the Holocaust, a leading Jewish-Turkish business has said.
“Just like German Chancellor Angela Merkel apologized for Turks who were murdered by neo-Nazis, Ankara must have the same courage,” İshak Alaton said.“This is a kind of open secret, but Turkey must acknowledge and apologize just like other responsible states have to. Britain, Romania and Turkey share this shame. It doesn’t matter if they were Jews or Muslims; they could have any other ethnic or religious identity. We owe it to those who were killed by the states. All the people must stand together against massacres,” Livaneli said during a service in Istanbul commemorating the 70th anniversary of the tragedy.
Alaton said he was only 15 years old when he carried bread to the ship Struma every morning while it was anchored at the Istanbul shore. “I realized that they were sent to death when a morning came and we did not find the boat where it had been. Only the Jewish community helped out those people who were living in that old boat with diseases and hunger,” Alaton told the Hürriyet Daily News.
The Struma disaster happened following an official declaration of the British authorities that no Jews would be accepted to Palestine. As such, Turkish authorities did not allow anyone to leave the boat, according to reports. Turkish authorities cut the chain of the anchor and, due to a breakdown in the engine, tugboats attached ropes to the boat and pulled it out of the Bosphorus, leaving it in the Black Sea, where a Soviet submarine shot the boat on Feb. 24, 1942. Some 764 people died in the incident.Only one person, a 20-year-old man, was rescued – 24 hours after the event. Some 760 of the bodies were never recovered.

                                 Soviet submarine SC-213 torpedoed the Struma on Feb 24
Alaton said the Jewish community was in fear due to the fascist atmosphere that had been created by ultranationalist Turks at the time. Read the full story here.

                                                        STRUMA monument in Ashdod