"Struma" Ship Disaster a Reminder: Pray Daily for the Hostages and Survivors
"Hanging onto a floating piece of the demolished ship, the two men were the only passengers left who’d not yet sunken to their deaths off the coast of Turkey."
By Michael Golden
On this date in 1942, two men fought for their lives in the Black Sea by slapping and punching each other in the face. They were trying not to freeze to death — trying to keep themselves warm enough, long enough for someone to be able to save them.
David Stoliar was a 19-year-old Romanian Jew whose parents had purchased a $1,000 ticket for him to join 781 other Jewish refugees to escape the Nazis via a boat en route for Palestine. The older man who was with David, Lazar Dikof, was one of the 10 crew members. Hanging onto a floating piece of the ship, the two men were the only ones who’d not yet sunk in the waters just off the coast of Western Turkey.
The voyage itself was not likely to succeed in the first place — but for every Jew being targeted by Hitler’s Final Solution, nearly any gambit was worth the risk. The ship itself, the “Struma,” had been built back in 1867 and had been used as a troopship in the Balkan Wars in the early 20th century, and then to transport cattle. The rickety old sloop, which had a second-hand diesel engine, was designed to hold no more than 150 people. The refugee passengers squeezed into the Struma and packed themselves like sardines into stacks of cramped bunks below deck. The conditions were revolting.
Struma set sail on December 12, 1941, but the engine immediately failed and it had to be towed back Romania. The ship was escorted out once again by a tugboat, and failed a second time. Eventually, the tugboat crew said it wouldn’t repair Struma unless they were paid. The Jews on board had already been blackmailed/robbed of their money by authorities to allow the ship to sail. So the Jews on board now paid the crew with the jewelry left on their bodies.
Struma set sail one more time, but it didn’t get any further. The engine failed and on December 15, she was towed into a port in Istanbul. There the ship sat anchored for 10 weeks, and the Jewish refugees — already well accustomed to the fact that most countries in the world did not want them — waited as Turkish officials and British diplomats haggled over what to do.
Confined to the boat, they were dirty, tired and starving. Local Jewish organizations brought food and negotiated with the Turks to get it on board.
Finally on February 23, Turkish authorities were persuaded by the British to let Struma loose from port. It was towed out into the Black Sea — but the engine still wouldn’t start. The passengers knew what was going on. They hung signs over the sides of the boat that read “SAVE US” in English and Hebrew. No one reacted. The ship kept moving.
The next morning, the Struma was inadvertently exploded by a Soviet submarine called the “Shch-213” — whose officers had mistaken it for a Nazi troopship. More than 100 children were among the 790 who died.
Somehow David Stoliar and Lazar Dikof were able to hold on and fight to stay above the surface. But the older Lazar tired quicker, eventually stopped speaking, and David watched the man’s body disappear into the waters.
Soon the dark of night set in and it became even colder. David didn’t see any path. He took out his pocket knife to cut his wrists — but his hands were too frozen to get the blade open.
David Stoliar was semiconscious when a few men on a fishing boat saw him. When he woke up later, he found himself in a boathouse in front of a stove. The lone survivor. As Kaya Genc would write years later in the L.A. Review of Books:
“He was among the hundreds of men, women, and children who had been abandoned to their fate by a confluence of war, hate, and international politics. In a strange confederacy, Nazis, Communist officials, British Foreign Office personnel, and Turkish politicians all played various roles in one of the worst maritime tragedies of the previous century.”
David’s mother Annette was lost to the murderers of Aushwitz-Birkenau. But his father Jacob survived. And they did their best to pursue a new life.
After the war, David got married, had a son, and served in the Israeli military and in the 1948 War of Independence. He went into the oil business and lived in Japan for several years before he and his second wife settled down in Bend, Oregon.
David Stoliar died at the age of 91 in 2014. Like many survivors, it took him decades to even be able to talk about his experience. But before his death, he had found peace, even telling a reporter at The Oregonian:
“It’s an interesting world. Fortunately, the world has many beautiful things to see and admire…Just enjoy your life.”
Today, 83 years from the day the Struma exploded and one man survived, I am thinking even more about the 62 hostages still in Hamas captivity — and all of the survivors who’ve been released. They are facing a new psychological reality; their lives forever changed.
No one can know how our brethren are going to process this sickening tragedy that they have had to endure — and are still enduring. But I do know that I am praying for each and every one of them.
MICHAEL GOLDEN is the Editor-In-Chief of JEWDICIOUS and founder of The Golden Mean.
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I asked my father about it once, because he never spoke about it. He said, "I can't talk about it," and a tear rolled down his cheek. I never asked him again.
What a beautiful and inspiring story!