A Belated Remembrance. When Jews Rely On Others’ Goodwill

...while we welcome any empathy with the Jewish people, we cannot but suspect that rather than voicing genuine remorse, Turkey’s memorial served as a cynical ploy to expediently disguise other sentiments. For Israelis, more than anything, the Struma powerfully illustrates what happens when Jews rely on others’ goodwill.

The ill-fated Struma illustrates what
happens when Jews rely on others’ goodwill.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
09 March '15..

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 (103 of them babies and children) who drowned off its coast on February 24, 1942 when WWII already raged.

These refugees from Nazi horrors were packed like sardines on the unseaworthy Danube barge Struma which left the Rumanian port of Constanza heading “illegally” toward British-mandated Eretz Yisrael. It barely made it into Istanbul Harbor. It couldn’t continue. Its makeshift motor failed. There was no fuel, food or water.

Contrary to what was asserted at the ceremony, Turkey was hardly magnanimous.

Moreover, for the first time in 73 years, official Turkey saw fit to remember but not to apologize – although it insisted on Israel’s apology for foiling the 2010 Mavi Marmara provocation. In its first-ever Struma commemoration, Turkey’s foreign ministry very belatedly – almost three-quarters of a century inexplicably too late – “extended condolences to the victims’ relatives and to Turkish-Jewish citizens.”

The ministry averred that “Turkey always, adopts a humane approach with respect to humanitarian tragedies that occur in its vicinity.” It also was content to blame the Struma’s sinking on the Soviets, realizing full well that they unknowingly only delivered the coup de grace to the helpless refugees.

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.

Turkey was then supposedly neutral but its much-ballyhooed nonalignment didn’t extend to outcast Jewish refugees. The Arabs – who were openly and unreservedly Nazism’s avid collaborators – pressured London into denying endangered Jews asylum in the Jewish homeland and His Majesty government did precisely that.

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

Fresnozionism - If I do not defend myself, who will defend me?

Fresnozionism.org..
02 June '12..

Even among events of some of the darkest days in recent history, this story stands out. Not so much because so many people stood by and did nothing — that’s happening today in Syria, and seems to happen every few months somewhere in the world — but because so many ‘enlightened’ nations actively cooperated in making it happen.

No one writes like Sarah Honig, and the following isn’t easy to read, even if you are familiar with the events described. But please read it to the end. Read the last sentence. Several times. (h/t: GR)

Lessons from the floating coffin
By Sarah Honig

February 24, 2012

Exactly 70 years ago – on February 24, 1942 – 19-year-old David Stoliar terrifyingly clung to bobbing debris in the Black Sea. At first he heard screams in the frigid waters but the voices died down. It eventually emerged that Stoliar was the sole survivor of the Struma, an un-seaworthy vessel chuck-full of frantic Jewish refugees.

World War II was already in fever pitch. Against the enormity of the then-unfolding Holocaust, the loss at sea of 768 Jewish lives (103 of them babies and children) was at most blithely overlooked as a marginal annotation.