In the first edition of this work I relayed the testimony that David Stoliar’s father, Jacob, reported orally to my parents, Erna and Nathan Rubinstein, in the early 1960s. After publication I received a letter from Professor Samuel Aroni, a friend of David Stoliar, calling my attention to a number of inaccuracies in the testimony as I presented it. The following is David Stoliar’s own testimony, which I received via email on June 28, 2001. (See appendix 1 below for the testimony by Jacob Stoliar and Professor Aroni’s comments.)

My family name has always been “Stoliar,” not Stoljar, not Stoleru. Our family always used “Stoliar,” which in Russian means “cabinet maker” or “finish carpenter.” I was born in Kishinev, Bassarabia, in 1922, which at that time was part of the Romanian territory. My family lived there until 1927. Then we moved to France; my father joined one of his older brothers there that had a hotel in Vence (16 miles north of Nice) called “Adastra.” In Vence I went to kindergarten and primary school.

My family never returned to Kishinev. In 1930 my family moved to Bucharest, my father joined another older brother who had a textile factory in Bucharest. In 1932 my father and mother divorced. My mother moved to Paris to join her brother living there. My father remained in Bucharest. I was sent to Fontainbleau, College Carnot, as a boarder. Every weekend I was taking the train to Paris to see my mother (one hour train ride). In 1936 my father called me back to Bucharest. He remained and wanted me to live with him. My mother remained in France and was married to a French/Russian man. I went to school in Bucharest and visited my mother every summer.

In summer of 1939, my father instructed me to return to Bucharest immediately due to possible war. I took one of the last trains Paris-Bucharest, before the WWII started. I continued to attend high-school (Liceul Matei Basarab) in Bucharest until 1940 when I was thrown out being [a] Jew. All Jews were thrown out of Romanian schools. The Jewish Community of Bucharest opened their own school (Liceul Cultura) which I attended, but it did not last long, by the end of 1940 I was taken to forced labor camp in Poligon. My father pulled me out when he bought a ticket for me for passage on the Struma and got me a passport by paying off the authorities. My mother remained in Paris. In 1942 she was taken to a transit concentration camp, near Paris, then deported with another 1,000 Jews, Convoy number 42, to Auschwitz, and killed. I received these documents from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC. For some reason she is listed under her maiden name. Her husband had a son from a previous marriage, same age as me. Their boy was also killed at the same time as my mother. This is the story of my family. It has no resemblance with Rubinstein’s story of my family.

Appendix 1:

The only survivor states: “Slowly, slowly, people were getting frozen and drowned.”

The only survivor of the Struma disaster, David Stoliar, 78, lives nowadays in Portland, Oregon. Yesterday he was interviewed by “Haaretz” and he detailed the circumstances in which he managed to survive: “The lower level was metallic and it sank immediately carrying hundreds of passengers. Hundreds of bodies were drifting on the sea, but Stoliar noticed a wooded beam that was a remnant of the deck. He clutched it and floated on it. A crew officer managed also to cling to the beam. We talked, sang and shouted until the small hours and we feared that if we would fall asleep our bodies would freeze. The officer could not handle the cold, and in the morning I found that he had died and I remained the only survivor".

The most frightening scene, he continued, was the fact that after the blast hundreds of passengers remained alive, clinging to every remnant of the ship that was drifting, hovering between life and death. Terrible shrieks were heard; we noticed the coast in the distance, but no help was in sight. The hours went by slowly, people were getting frozen and drowned one by one. Some Turkish fishermen noticed him by chance; they hauled him up and he was transferred under escort to a hospital. In spite of his weak health the Turkish authorities imprisoned him for two months. As soon as he was released from the Turkish prison, he got on the train to Syria and from there he proceeded to Haifa where he reported at the police station. Stoliar admits that he had not felt an incentive to commemorate the tragedy, but on the other hand he cannot understand how the disaster was cast into collective oblivion over such a long time. “A long span of time was necessary until people realized that the Struma is in fact a meaningful part of history,” he said.

In my opinion Stoliar made up his mind to move from Bassarsabia to Romania (Regat, Old Kingdom) as a result of the German invasion of Poland on September the 1st ,1939. The Soviet Union decided  to enforce promptly the clauses of the Molotov-Ribbentrop secret agreement of August 23rd 1939 and annexed the territories that had been in fact granted to Russia including the regions of Bassarabia and north Bucovina. Undoubtedly Stoliar could not be aware of the political circumstances that brought about a sudden change in Romania’s position. Romania that was in fact an ally of Poland within the terms of the Little Entente treaty was too weak to condemn the invasion, it hastened to declare itself neutral on September 4th 1939 and had no alternative but to give in and accept the annexation of Bassarabia and north Bucovina regions by Russia. On July the 2nd 1940, Romania made the declaration that it was giving up the British guarantees and two days later a pro-German government came to power. Shortly afterwards on July 16th 1940 a German military delegation was invited to Bucharest by the new government. [30] In my opinion, Stoliar the father, could not have knowledge of these political developments and his actions were merely set off by an instinct for self-preservation and by the concern of saving his son’s life. As he made up his mind to send his son to Paris while Romania declared itself a neutral country, he could not have guessed that France, a Great Power and an ally of Britain according to the “Great Entente” treaty that had assured Romania of its political guarantees, was itself under imminent threat. However as soon as he realized this, he hastened to bring his son back to Romania in the summer of 1940 while the war in France was at its height and the collapse of France became a fact.

(It appears that following the capitulation of France, David Stoliar was able to return to Romania, as did other Romanian citizens, due to a request of the Romanian government addressed to the German.)[31]. As soon as his son returned from France, Stoliar came to the conclusion that the only chance left for David to remain alive was to emigrate to Palestine aboard the Struma and he hastened to pay the high amount requested for the sea-journey.[32] I would like to point out my parents’ remark that David’s stay in France had had a fateful meaning in his life, he started to take swimming classes... And so David Stoliar sailed on the Struma and his fate was to survive and be the sole survivor of the awful tragedy and  the only Struma survivor who is  still alive, after the death of Medeea, who witnessed the horrors of  Struma’s last days before the shipwreck. After the Second World War Stoliar became a businessman in Japan and today he is 78 and lives in the United States.[33]       

None of the above is accurate!
See David Stoliar’s testimony, above pp. 22-23