3) Dalia Ofer, op.cit. p. 237-240. In this book Ofer relies, among other sources, on Stoliar’s testimony (p. 239). Excerpts from David Stoliar’s statement, brought forth in a literary style, have been published in Romanian by the writer Arthur Leibovici (under the pen-name Maria Arsene, his wife’s name) in the documentary novel The Struma, Bucharest 1972 pp. 367-372. The text of the statement is probably a translation from Leib Kupferstein’s book “Meghilath Strumah, Tel Aviv, 1942. See also Mihai Stoian, The Last Journey, Bucharest 1995 pp.166-171.

4) G.I.Vaneev, Cernomortzy V Velicestvennoi Voine, Moscva, 1978. 

5) See the editor’s notes in the article: E. Harel , “Struma the Ship that was doomed to death, Yahadut Romania Betekumath Israel( The Romanian Jews and the Rebirth of Israel). Edited by Paltiel Segal, vol.1, Tel Aviv 1992, p. 263; see also the article by Tehila Ofer, “The Russians sank the Struma ship and so did the  Turks and the British,” Maariv, Tel Aviv, 20.02.1992.

6) In an interview published in the weekly newsletter in Romanian language Buna diminiata Haifa! (= Good Morning, Haifa) 2, no 112 (6/4/2000), Mr.[6] Touvia Carmeli, who is about to publish a book in Romanian entitled Struma periplul pierzanei (= Struma, the track of death), concurred to my approach regarding the importance of what the Bulgarian sailor told Stoliar while both of them held on desperately to a board from the ship after the sinking. I refer of course to the fact that he saw the torpedo that sank the ship advancing towards it from the Turkish coast (cf. my booklet: “The Curse that Came True…,” Jerusalem 1997, pp. 3-4). Of course both Carmeli and I are relying on the testimony of  Stoliar, the only survivor of the fatal torpedo. We do not concur only in the strange explanation that Carmeli gave for the astounding fact that the torpedo was launched from the Turkish coast. I myself have some doubt how to explain it. I have suggested, for example, that perhaps a British-Soviet conspiracy intended to bring about the distancing of the ship by the Turks from the Turkish coast to enable a Soviet submarine to come underwater between the coast and the ship creating a cloud cover regarding the true source of the fire launched at the ship – all this without the knowledge of the Turks.  However, Carmeli, who adopted my interpretation regarding a British-Soviet conspiracy, jumps to the far-fetched conclusion that the distancing of the ship from the coast was meant to create antagonism between Turkey and the Axis powers – no more, no less! If we adopt this line of thought, it means that if Turkey is blamed for launching the torpedo, that should anger Germany because it led to the drowning of nearly one thousand Jews! Perhaps what led Carmeli to make this claim is that he thinks that there may have been some Nazi agents on board. I anxiously awaited the appearance of his book to see his conclusive documentation of that assertion. It is possible that Germany – although I have doubts about it, I  do not want to deny the possibility that the British claimed there were agents on the Struma in order to prevent its sailing for Palestine (see below p. 46 and note 44) – planted some agents among the emigrants headed for Palestine or among the crew, but I seriously doubt that they were Germans, unless their nationality was camouflaged. It is much more likely that they were Bulgarians (since the crew was also Bulgarian) or Romanians or perhaps some pitiful Jews who were blackmailed or bribed by the Germans to give them information on what would transpire on board the ship or even perhaps to use them after arrival in Palestine. During 2002 Carmeli’s book The Real Story of Struma or Breaking Down a 60 Years Old Conspiracy of Silence, appeared in Haifa in English. See below Appendix 4. Even if we accept this astounding presumption, it is very difficult to imagine that after the ship sank the Germans would regard the drowning of these agents as a cause for tension with neutral Turkey..

7. The fact holds true with the exception of the volume edited by Josephine Feinstein and David
 Safran: Struma, the Ship of Life and Death, Jerusalem 1965. Josephine Feinstein is a journalist born in Bucharest whose two sons Mircea and Harry Juster Feinstein perished in the Struma tragedy. Her comments deal with the personality of her sons, the reason of their departure, their hopes, and mentions the contents of the letters they had sent from Istanbul and her bitter feelings as a mother who had lost her sons. Rabbi Dr. David Safran comments on his friend Itzhak Tercatin from Jassy who was a law student and the leader of the Beitar Zionist youth movement. He was one of the organizers of the journey and perished himself during the disaster. Another exception occurs in some excerpts in Simion Saveanu’s volume entitled: “Save the Honour of Civilization” - Salvati Onoarea Civilizatiei - Struma, Tel Aviv 1996, pp.116-171.

8.  This field of study was founded by the Israeli lawyer of Romanian origin Benjamin Mendelsohn. His research studies started to take shape within the framework of a correspondence he was carried on with Sigmund Freud in 1934 on a law court trial that was held in Bucharest. Benjamin Mendelsohn brought out the impact of psychological circumstances in his analysis of the victims. He later dealt also with research in connection with the Holocaust victims. See: K.Weiss, “Victimology in Jerusalem”, International Faces of Victimology : Papers and Essays given at the 6th International Symposium on Victimology.

9.  My parents told me that Mosh Mendel was a moderate, although very religious Jew. Carmeli, however describes him as “a very bigot Jew.” Since Carmeli used central data regarding Mosh Mendel from different versions of my study on the Struma since 1977 (even if, like Dr. Ofir, below note 15) he forgot to give a reference to it – for example the very name “Mosh Mendel” and in particular the remarkable story of his giving up his personal baggage in order to carry a Torah scroll with him to Erez Israel – I presume that the source of his error is a poor translation of the words “a very religious Jew” in my study.

10) According to the record of the Struma victims that came out in a full text in the publication “Yahadut Romania betekumat Israel”, vol. 1, pp. 264-268, that was already mentioned, Mendel Marcus was 69 years old. I would like to point out that my parents, who told me that he was a widower, do not remember accurately the names of the other members of the Marcus family except for the younger son, Avraham-Aurel, whose name also appears in the victims’ record, age 28. The Struma victims’ record was published also in the booklet entitled Struma, Tel Aviv 1983 (it also appeared in Romanian and both versions are arranged alphabetically). Another, different version was published in Romanian by I. Feinstein and D. Safran, Struma, pp. 143-151. I have preferred to rely on the record in Yahadut Romania.

11) Their names are not given in the aforementioned record, note 10. It is possible that these names were erroneously registered or given in a different form.

12) See list of victims (note 10 above).

13) See table no. 4: “Ha`apalah (Illegal Immigration) Ships between Romania and Erez Israel 1945-1947,” A. Steinberg, “Aliyah, Ha`aplalah and Berikhah from Romania 1944-1949,” in Yahadut Romania be-Tequmat Israel, I, p. 252.

14) I hesitate to make a personal subjective remark. I was born on January 21st 1941, on the night of the terrible Bucharest pogrom. Although I was one year old my first childhood memory is associated with the picture of Mosh Mendel. I rember that as I was lying in bed a gentleman with a long white beard leaned over and kindly kissed my forehead. This happened in all likelihood during the farewell visit that Mosh Mendel and his family were paying at my parent’s place. My parents claim that my description matches only the image of Mosh Mendel, but that I cannot really remember because I was just one year old and that in fact what I do remember comes from what they had told me about him. However I am certain that this memory fragment is genuine.

15)  I am pleased that Dr. Efraim Ofir  made use in his book that appeared in 1999 (see below note 33), of this information that sheds light on this individual, thanks to my parents’ memories, which I published in a booklet on the Struma (“The Curse that Came True,” Jerusalem 1997, p. 5).

16) In the victims’ record (see note 10 above), his family name was misspelled and given as “Gutermacher.” However, his two first names were spelled correctly: Smil Zanvil and Zanvel in the Romanian version (Zanvil was his grandfather’s name). The right spelling, namely “Gutenmacher” is also given in the records preserved in the Haganah Archives, Tel Aviv. (See files 33/2038 and 39/2155.)

17) I wish to make a personal comment regarding Shabtai, my father Nathan’s childhood friend and the man under whose influence my father and other friends joined Beitar in Barlad in the early 1930s. From the superlatives that father used when telling me about Shabtai, like about Micki, I developed an admiration for Shabtai, who was in my estimation an exemplary figure and a Zionist idealist all his life. I remained in contact with him for many years until his death.  I learned a great deal from him. Nevertheless I was frustrated by my failure to convince him not to write a book about Jabotinsky, but an autobiographical work on his Zionist and public activity in Romania and in Erez Israel, especially his central role in illegal immigration. Shabtai, who was Jabotinsky’s personal bodyguard when the leader visited Romania, and was moved by his speeches, was naturally an enthusiastic admirer of him and when I asked him once where he got his brilliant talent for speaking, he said to me “I had a great teacher in this area.” Ignoring my pleas, he did publish his fine study of Jabotinsky: Be’esh Yoqedet – Zeev Jabotinsky Moreh Dorot Lohamim ve-Bonim, Jerusalem 1991 (cover portrait by the painter Gretty Rubinstein).

18) How fragile the Jewish fate in Romania, as in all of Europe between the two world wars may be illustrated by what happened to the Gutenmacher family: its mobility for economic reasons from Bassarabia to Moldova saved it from the horrible fate of the Jews of Bassarabia and Northern Bukovina as a result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov agreeement of 1939. (Regarding this horrible tragedy, which resulted from the division of spheres of influence in Eastern Europe between Germany and the USSR, see: M. Taich, Ha-Tragedia ha-gedolah shel Yahadut Bassarabia, Tel Aviv 1962.

19) “The Barlad Ken [Branch of Beitar]… was evidently founded in 1929,” Yehudah [Iuju] Epstein and Shaul Cohen (Cahani) wrote in S. Shitnovitzer, Beitar ve-hatenuah ha-Zionit ha-Revisionistit be-Romania 1925-1950, Jerusalem 1992, pp. 213-214; “The great momentum in the development of the ken took place later when the brothers Shabetai, Grisha, Micky and Yosele Gutenmacher took charge of the ken. They led the Barlad ken forcefully and enthusiastically and were the living spirit of the ken. Among all the members of the Gutenmacher family, the activity of Shabetai is particularly notable. He had a natural talent for propoganda. He knew how to convince most of the population of the town with his speeches….”

Epstein and Cohen add that during Blank’s period (at the end of the 1930s) among others who were active in the headquarters were two of Shabetai’s brothers, Grisha Gutenmacher (Zvi Hermoni) and Micky Gutenmacher. Likewise they add that Shabetai was the commander of the ken after the first commander Schwartz. Shabetai moved ahead when the naziv of Beitar, Y. Shieber invited him to Bucharest and appointed him officer of the region of Moldova (Ibid., pp. 213-214). From them until his sailing to Erez Israel on the Sakarya, Shabetai headed the illegal immigration organization of Beitar in Romania.

Until the end of 1947 many members of the branch immigrated to Erez Israel in illegal immigration, but the branch continued to operate thanks to some of its members who remained in Barlad, among them Yosele Gutenmacher, who was the group leader (cf.: Ken Betar ve-Hug Menorah, Barlad, Zichronot Mi-Galut” in Beitar ve-Hatenuah…, Ibid., pp. 214-217).

20) The aforementioned victims’ record (above note 10), p. 264. See also Haganah Archives, Tel Aviv, file 39/2120.

21) See Epstein and Cohen, Ibid., Ibid.

22) The aforementioned victims’ record (note 10), p. 265.
    22a) The three.....

23) N. Bethell gives her name among the survivors. See The Palestine Triangle, p. 117. Albert Finkelstein provides similar information in Etre ou ne pas Naitre, Chronique des Crimes contre l’humanite en Roumanie, Paris 1997, p. 274. According to the information provided by Finkelstein, who quotes the memoir written by the Chief Rabbi of Turkey and signed by Henri Soriano, who was the chairman of the Istanbul Jewish Community, there were nine people altogether aboard the Struma who held immigration visas for Palestine.

24) See the interview given by Israel Frank (Dinari) that was mentioned in Simion Saveanu’s publication “Save the Honor of Civilization” (above note 7), pp. 94-96. According to Saveanu’s statement there were five passengers altogether aboard the Struma who held official British certificates for Jewish immigration to Palestine, among them, the Frank (Dinari) couple and Israel Frank’s brother, Bret Schneider. As far as the Segals were concerned one cannot help noticing an unusual event. The husband had been the manager of the American “Steaua Romana” Petroleum company and strangely enough it was the ambassador of Japan who had brought his diplomatic influence to bear by asking the Turkish authorities to allow them to land although Japan and the United States were at war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941). A sad incident occurred, however, in spite of this diplomatic intervention: the Turkish authorities did not allow Segal’s mother to leave the ship and she perished following the disaster. In the victims’ record her name was probably Segal Liba, and she was 58 years old (Yahadut romanya betequmath Yisrael, vol. 1, pp. 264-268).

25) A blunt refusal in a similar matter was also given to Bret Schneider’s fiancee. See S. Saveanu, “Save the Honor of Civilization…”, p. 94.

26) In the Victims’ Record his name is given as Salmovitz Simon and he was 24 years old (see note 10). The name “Nezu” was just a nickname. The first mentionof Medeea, as a survivor of Struma, appears in the study by Professor Abraam Galante (see bellow appendix 15)

27) See note 23, The registration date of Medeea’s hospitalization, see in: A. Finkelstein, Etre ou ne pas Naitre,” p. 247.

28) Edward Keith-Roach, Pasha of Jerusalem: Memoirs of a District Commissioner under the British Mandate, London 1994, p. 214.

29) See the article by Eliyahu Harel (note 5 above). I would like to point out in this context that after World War I, when it was convenient for them in the changing political situation in Europe, it was not difficult for the British to acknowledge “dirty tricks” they had used during the war – as I pointed out in my study: S. Rubinstein, German Atrocities and British Propaganda, The Seventieth Anniversary of a Scandal: German Corpse Utilization Establishments in the First World War, Jerusalem 1987 – it is  not entirely clear that this was a “trick” of British Intelligence.

30) K. Hitchins, Romania 1866-1947, Bucharest 1966, pp. 472-477.

31) D. Hancu, Un Licar in Bezna (A glitter in the darkness), Bucharest 1997, pp. 7-21.

32) Facsimile of D. Stoliar’s ticket of passage – see above, p. 9.

33) The first piece of information that David Stoliar is alive reached me in 1997 through a telephone conversation with the engineer Baruch Terkatin (his brother Itzhak was a Struma victim). This coversation took place after I had sent him a copy of my booklet “The Curse that Came True.” Terkatin called me and let me know about his endeavors to collect information about the Struma disaster all over the world and that the most meaningful point in the course of his research had been his meeting with Stoliar in the United States. The purpose of his research is in connection with the publication of a book by Efraim Ofir, With No Way Out: Story of Struma, edited by Efraim Ofir, Baruch Terkatin and Dr. Leibovici Lais, Tel Aviv 1999. From Avi Shmul’s article: “Looking for the Remnants of the Sunken Struma,” Haaretz April 4, 2000, I was pleased to learn that not only is David Stoliar still alive, but that he was about to take part in the expedition to locate the remnants of the Struma in the Black Sea in August 2000. How serious these plans are one may learn from the article “The head of the ‘Struma Project’ [Gregory (Greg) Buxton] is in Israel,” “Buna dimineate Haifa!” II, no. 122, April 23, 2000.

(In the end Stoliar did not reach Istanbul. The expedition itself did not fully accomplish its mission, to find the Struma, because of obstacles created by the Turks at the last minute.)

34) I wish to express my gratitude to Mrs. Alda Mouchly for granting me this interview and providing me with many important documents and photographs published here (see below appendices 6-13).

34a) According to Mrs. Hanzi Nodiv, the widdow of Shabtei Nodiv, commander of the "Beitar Brigade" in Rosh Pina who stayed there together with his wife from August 1949 to February 1942, their only food, that whole time, was "bean mush with lentil soup or lentil soup with bean mush..."

35) Regarding the name of the unit, see above in the text of
      “Comments…”, p 20.

36) Regarding the name of the unit, see above in the text of
     “Comments…”, p. 20.

37) According to the testimony of Alda Mouchly, Joseph Zisman remained in Bucharest visiting his brother and uncle while Bernard Sulitzianu continued alone to Barlad.

38) I have recently heard that Carmeli is about to publish another work on the Struma. I congratulate him on this since every new study brings us closer to discovering the whole truth about the Struma.

39) Carmeli, p. 71.

40) Ibid., p. 111. No date is given by the author for this statement.

41)  Ibid., p. 112.

42) Ibid., Ibid.

43) We cannot refrain from asking ourselves: How could the Germans have acted so foolishly? We should also take into account that in the entire story of the “twelve” there are some factors that we do not know at all. Perhaps there is a human error in the number 747 given in the Red Crescent document. And Carmeli develops his entire theory on this document. I do not claim that it is necessarily so, but any serious scholar would be expected to a note raising the possibility. Likewise we must ask whether Carmeli’s calculations are accurate and, for example, whether he took into account that in the list of victims that was published and which he himself exerted notable efforts to analyze in order to create as complete a list as possible, the name of the Varcovicis is missing (see above note 11). Furthermore we must ask how Carmeli treated Medeea’s name. She did not appear in the list of victims since she was a survivor. Was she counted among the original passengers? She should have appeared there. If so should he not have taken these facts into account in his calculations? Moreover there may have been omissions or errors in the list of passengers and the list of victims. I do not want to discount the possibility that perhaps the Germans complicated themselves by their own ineptitude and acted in an amateur fashion, but I would ask Carmeli not to obviate these questions. He should not have written with such confidence regarding facts that are far from demonstrated, and may have been no more than circumstantial. At any rate common sense requires the scholar to behave more modestly in this delicate matter. (What is surprising is that from the title of Carmeli’s work and from certain expressions in it one gets the impression that it gives the last word on the Struma and there is no need to refer to the work of other scholars. Indeed?….)

[44]  For example let us take a look at Carmeli’s conclusion that the “twelve” informers, some of them Jews were meant to become “civilian informer for General Erwin Romel” (Ibid., p. 116), who was appointed by Hitler in Spring 1941 to commander of the Afrikaner Korps on the North African front, and was able to turn the balance to the benefit of the Axis powers and reached the border of Egypt. If we accept Carmeli’s conclusion, for which he provides no source despite its importance, having the “twelve” join the Struma in its voyage from Romania would have indicated a far-sighted approach on the part of the German Intelligence, envisioning the attack on Egypt.

This could be a sound analysis, but when the Struma reached Istanbul with its refugees and “informers” in December 1941, the British forces were in the midst of their second offensive in Lybia which began on December 11 and brought them to the liberation of Tubruk and on December 25 to the gates of Benghazi. Indeed the brilliant German general fulfilled the expectations of the Intelligence when he opened an offensive towards Egypt on May 27, 1942. However it is irrelevant to Carmeli’s conclusion since tragically the unfortunate ship had been “treated finally” by a Russian submarine a number of months earlier.  Even if theoretically the “informers” had been saved and reached Palestine, there is doubt whether Romel could have used their “intelligence contribution” for two reasons: 1) since the British would have known everything about them to begin with and could have picked them off like ripe fruit and uncover their contacts in Palestine; 2) by virtue of General Bernard Montgomery’s counter-offensive at the head of the Eighth Army and his defeat of Romel’s army at El-Alemein, driving them away finally from the Egyptian front on November 12, 1942.

[45]  Carmeli, Ibid., pp. 138-156.

[45a] The National -Legionnaire government started in summer –autumn 1940 to expel the Jews from many villages with the intention inter-alia of stealing their property. In Murgeni, for example, not a single Jew remained. One of the expelled Jews, the ritual slaughterer (Shochet), Josef Fishman, who moved to Barlad, was not permitted by the local authorities to stay in the town and was ordered to return to Murgeni. The Federation of  Jewish communities applied in his name to the Central Police Office in Bucharest on November 4, 1940, asking them to intervene to stop the expulsion on the grounds that by that time there were no Jews left in the village. ( Jean Ancel: History of the Holocaust Romania Vol. 1, Jerusalem 2002, pp 308-309).

I assume that most of the Jews expelled from the area around Barlad moved to Berlat itself. Fishman  was probably not the only one to be re-expelled to his village but his case is the only one to be documented

[46]  Z. Azaria’s wife was a distant relative of the Zismans, and Joseph lived with them temporarily in Haifa during his studies.

[47]  This document as well as those in appendices 6-13 are published here with the generous permission of Mrs. Alda Mouchly, who also provided the photographs of the Zisman family in Barlad. This postcard testifies to the fact that after Great Britain broke off relations with Romania on February 10, 1941, after Romania joined the axis Berlin-Rome-Tokyo postal contact continued between the two countries. Thereafter brief messages could be exchanged only by means of official forms of the International Red Cross, usually in French. Sometimes this process took a number of months because it involved censorship and transfer of the messages via the offices of the Red Cross in Geneva. According to the testimony of Alda Mouchly when the addressee received the form he was meant to write his answer on the back of the form, which was once more sent via Geneva.

[48]  This is probably a reference to the fact that Joseph played the violin in coffee houses in Haifa in the evenings to earn a living as a student. See above appendix 2.

[49]  According to Alda Mouchly this seems to have been the name of the club frequented by British officers and officials.

[50]  Advocate Moris Goldin (Goldstein), See appendix 11, below.

[51]  In those years there were no streets in the Ahuza neighborhood, only houses within a pine forest. One of the belonged to the Braunstein family. According to Alda Mouchly, this was a generous family in whose home Joseph lived for a time.

[52]  The response has no date, but is marked 3 Nov. 1941 next to the seal of the refugee office in the National Center of the Red Cross, Romania. This is evidently the date on which the telegram was dispatched from Romania to Geneva on its way to Palestine.

[53]  Arrived December 30, 1941.

[54]  Arrived March 5, 1942.

[55]  On February 24, five days after this message was written, Joseph’s mother perished in the Struma.

[56]  I.e. his mother who had set sail on the Struma.

[57]  In the light of the contents of the message this date requires further investigation.

[58]  Nasu’s second wife.

[59]  Weisman owned a diamond polishing factory in Netanya. He was a good friend of the family, who employed Joseph for a time and helped him. Just before the Israel War of Independence, he closed the factory and emigrated to Canada. His ties with Joseph ceased at that time.

[60]  The message carries two additional dates: May 27, 1942 and August 20, 1942.

[61]  The date inscribed on the letter is obviously erroneous. The letter was written in February 17, 1942, only seven days before the sinking of the Struma.

[62]  See note 50 above.

[63]  A physician, one of Sofie’s brothers, lived either in Roman or Iasi, died in the 1940s.

[64]  The wife of Advocate Moris Goldin, son Sigmund Goldstein, Sofie’s brother.  Sigmund was the owner of a large farm, evidently in the vicinity of Tulca. The Goldins immigrated to Israel with their only son George in 1950 and later on emigrated to Canada.

[65]  Evidently Copel’s projected journey to Eretz Israel.

[66] Jacques Tzimand, 24 years old, son of Adolf Tzimand of Bucharest. Jacques, a bachelor without family aboard the Struma, may have volunteered to help Mrs. Zisman, who was traveling alone. Perhaps the authorities allowed only the older passengers traveling alone to send letters, and Jacques took advantage of the opportunity to send regards to his family in Bucharest.

[67]  Edica = Edith Rosenfeld, Bebe’s girlfriend. Edith’s family was from Tchernovitz, the capital of Bukovina. Sofie regarded her as her future daughter-in-law and the kisses were intended for her and her parents.

[68]  The signature is unclear, but it is very likely "Nashu", or "Nasu", i. e. Joseph's brother. Appendix 8 (above) is evidently pertinent here.

[69]  The form was sent from Cairo on September 4, 1942 to his family in Barlad at Sofie’s address.

[70]  A region on the border of Turkey and Syria. Between 1918 and 1939 it was included in Syria. France, which held the mandate of the League of Nations over Syria, transferred the region to Turkey on June 23, 1939, in accordance with a mutual assistance agreement signed between these two countries on that day. The name of the region was changed to Iskandron.

Evidently the rumor was a result of the fact that a few holders of certificates, among them Medea Salmovic to go ashore in Istanbul for medical reasons. These rumors reached Romania, and since it was not clear to whom they referred, they naturally aroused hope among the worried families. According to the testimony of Alda Mouchly, hope arose that because of her age and the fact that she was travelling alone, perhaps she was among those permitted to go ashore.

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