Upon the Loss of the Struma
The loss of the Struma is still shrouded
in mystery. Precisely as the report [of its
sinking] shouted into the void of the world,
the rulers here have decreed silence. “Lest it be told in Gath”—lest
it be told within the earshot of the Jewish community here, that obtuse
villainy and malice have joined forces in presuming to fight for the
well-being and deliverance of those who groan under oppression; for
the well-being and deliverance of the enslaved and oppressed peoples.
In the waters of the Bosporus, in the gulf
where three maritime routes for the immiserated
Jewish exiles intersect, a buffeted refugee
vessel has slipped beneath the waves. These
people, fugitives from evil and malice knew
that in aiming for the shores of their homeland
they would encounter the hard-heartedness
and stupidity of the trustees of this country,
the land of the Jewish “national home. It is they whose
hearts treat the plundered, mauled people like the hearts of lions,
and whose reckonings and schemes befit those of small-minded traders.
Did they know that the Zionist movement and
the Jewish community in Palestine hadn't
the political strength to reserve, from the
miserable quota of certificates given, the
seven hundred and sixty certificates needed
to bring the clandestine immigrants aboard
the Struma to the shores of Palestine?
These seven hundred Jewish souls have descended
to the depths. May their souls join those
of the victims of evil in this war, those
of the clandestine immigrants, those who
drowned when the Patria and the Salvador
sank , and those victimized when the Atlantic
was sent away. We accept no consolation for
them. For us, they are a symbol, a memorial,
and a sign.
As for us, we shall continue to fight the
eternal villainy embodied in Nazism to the
limits of our strength and ability. We will
align ourselves with any fighting force,
but we are fighting Nazism not because it
is German. This war against Nazism will not
perform its corrective function unless all
of its manifestations, be they German-Teutonic
or Anglo-Saxon, are eradicated.
We struggle in common cause with the peoples
that Nazism purports to enslave and cleanse
of their divine and human image. [We cast
our lot] with the abused, enslaved, dispossessed,
and shattered peoples, whose hearts stir
with rebellion and whose hands clutch the
banner of uprising against the oppressive
National-Socialist regime.
It is this war that will pierce the black
depths and pave the way for the redemption
of Jewry in Zion.
Source: Tsror Mikhtavim —Internal Information Bulletin
Ein Harod, March 6, 1942, No. 115 (180)
Source: Yad
Vashem