The Struma

90 & 64 minute versions • Documentary • Produced in association with: Cinemax Reel Life, Channel 4, Israel Broadcasting Authority and History Television • Production year: 2001

In 1941 somewhere in the Black Sea, nearly 800 Romanian Jews are aboard a 46-metre boat called ‘The Struma’, a refugee ship bound for Palestine. The vessel is horribly overcrowded with frightened passengers… and then the engine fails.

Limping along, ‘The Struma’ manages to reach Istanbul Harbour only to wait while Turkey, trying to stay “neutral” in the war, deliberates the passengers’ fate. Desperate cries can be heard from the shore. Sheets with the plea “SAVE US” are visible over the sides of the ship. The Struma floats aimlessly.

Twelve hours later, a submarine locks on the boat. A single torpedo is fired. The sea is full of the dead and dying. Over 100 are children. Twenty-four hours later, Turkish fishermen sail out to the site of the wreck. They find one survivor. Today, he is still alive.

Now, the grandson of two Struma passengers leads an international team of elite divers to find the watery gravesite of his grandparents.

Directed by: Simcha Jacobovici
Producers: Simcha Jacobovici and Felix Golubev
Supervising Producer: Ric Bienstock
Executive Producers: Jack Rabinovitch, Pauline Duffy and Simcha Jacobovici