Later on Harold MacMichael, the High Commissioner for Palestine, declared: “…There has been a specific report of Nazi agents on the Struma…”.[40] Moreover the Germans invested a great intelligence effort – including an important achievement when they obtained Turkish permission to allow two of the agents – one German and the other Jewish, to disembark with the intention that the German would be able to reach a certain central hotel in Istanbul. This maneuver was meant to enable this informer to call the German consulate in the city from this hotel. None of this escaped the attention of the Turkish intelligence, or, even the British Intelligence, who followed the man’s every step.[41] (Perhaps one day when the Turkish archives from this period are opened, researchers will discover that the Turks implemented their neutrality by informing the British about the German whom they allowed to disembark.)

Carmeli also makes a notable effort to calculate the number of Jewish immigrants on the Struma, the crew members and the other passengers on the boat.  His intention is to prove on the basis of the calculations that there were 12 unidentified passengers, not listed among the Jewish immigrants. The key element of data is the discrepancy between the official list of passengers at the time of departure from Constanza that gives 769 on board and an important document which we will discuss below, according to which there were 747 Jewish immigrants on board when the Struma reached Istanbul. Adding 10 crew members to the 747 passengers, Carmeli concludes that the remaining 12 passengers were civilian informers planted by the Germans.

Without any doubt the discovery of the second document is a cornerstone for Carmeli’s theory regarding the informers. It is his trump card: The document is a letter from the Red Crescent Office in Istanbul dated December 23, 1941. This letter, signed by J. Cemal Akan, addressed to the Customs Office in Istanbul, Export Dept., states that the Struma, which arrived from Romania with 747 (sic!) Jewish refugees on board, and lists food items that were purchased for these Jewish refugees by the Turkish Jewish communities. Concluding his letter, the writer requests permission to transfer these items to the ship.[42]

          Indeed this letter is of the greatest importance, but not for the reasons that Carmeli gives. On the contrary it reveals the weakness of Carmeli’s theory because it destroys the house of cards that he built on the premise that German Intelligence wanted the 12 informers to fulfill their mission ultimately as German agents in Palestine, which depended of course on total secrecy. What does this document reveal? That the Red Crescent and Turkish customs could have both calculated on the basis of the documents of the Struma and noted the discrepancy. They could have concluded from it that in addition to the 10 crew members there were 12 additional passengers on board who did not need to receive food from the Jewish community. Evidently someone else was taking care of their needs, just as there was a different source for the needs of the crew. The importance of this fact is that this important information could have reached the British through one of them. And what is more significant, the leadership of the Jewish refugees on the ship could not have failed to notice this discrepancy and derive its meaning. They could have easily noticed that something unusual was happening with regard to these 12 passengers. Moreover they would have had no difficulty in noticing that some of the “twelve” were Jews, as Carmeli would have us believe. It is only reasonable that the German Intelligence, who planted the informers on board, would have had to make every effort to disguise them among the others and make sure that the food provided to all would serve them as well, even if it meant that they had to suffer all the discomfort of the rest of the passengers, including the pathetic hygienic and living conditions. In fact, if someone saw to it that these “twelve” received food separately, in my opinion, he would obviously have also been concerned that they not be endangered by these hygienic conditions (there were only a very few latrines for the use of the passengers) and would have arranged for these “twelve” to use the separate latrine that no doubt was available for the crew.[43]

Unfortunately Carmeli hardly uses scholarly references, especially in matters of essence. The educated reader expects to find these references which would enable him to examine the sources for himself in order to evaluate the author’s analysis and reach his own conclusions. For example, he might want to check when MacMichael made the declaration quoted above. Perhaps there is more information regarding the report he mentioned. A more important example is the source from which he took the letter from the Red Crescent to the Customs Office.

I do not want my criticism to be understood as underestimating the importance of this study. I am aware of the difficulties that a writer faces with regards to giving his sources. Sometimes it is beyond his control. I myself faced these limitations with regard to this study, based as it is, to a great part on oral testimony. It would have been better to compare the oral testimony to written documents, but they are almost non-existent. The few documents that I received from Mrs. Alda Mouchly about the tragic fate of Sophie Zisman are an important contribution to this study (see below). His credibility was somewhat diminished by his lack of citing sources as well as the liberty he took with some of his speculations.[44]