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Turkey marks anniversary of 1942 refugee ship disaster

Foreign Ministry remembers those who lost their lives when Soviet submarine torpedoed ship carrying Jewish refugees

24.02.2018 - Update : 24.02.2018
Turkey marks anniversary of 1942 refugee ship disaster

Ankara

By Dildar Baykan 

ANKARA

Turkey on Saturday commemorated the victims of the Struma disaster of 1942, when a vessel carrying an estimated 769 Jewish refugees was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea.  

In a written statement, the Foreign Ministry’s spokesman Hami Aksoy said: "We commemorate in sorrow all those who lost their lives in the Struma tragedy, while escaping the Holocaust, one of the gravest disasters in human history.” 

The Istanbul Governorship also hosted a commemoration ceremony with the participation of representatives of the Turkish Jewish Community, it added. 

On Feb. 24, 1942, the Struma -- a vessel which departed from Constanta in Axis-allied Romania -- sank after it was torpedoed in international waters of the Black Sea, off the coast of the Istanbul province's Sile. 

The disaster killed 768 people -- including 103 children -- who had been fleeing the Holocaust. There was only one survivor, 19-year-old David Stoliar, who passed away in 2014 at the age of 91.


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