‘Salvador Ship’, which served as coffins for hundreds of people in Istanbul

Before we get into why and how, we need to point out that this situation is a complete disaster. No matter what, paying for human life so cheaply is not something anyone deserves. calendars II. Let’s start telling the story by returning to the years of World War II.

83 years ago, in the middle of the night Off the coast of Silivri The chalky faces of the people walking around… Even though their blood ran cold at what they saw, they were unaware of the event, at least for that night.

The disaster occurred on December 12, 1940.

In the headlines of Turkey’s prominent newspapers of that period “A Disaster in Silivri” The incident was announced to the press with headlines. It was reported in the news that 85 Jewish passengers lost their lives.

A sailing ship named Uruguay, which set out to go to Palestine, sailed towards the Black Sea. Essentially “old and corruptThis ship, which is stated to be “” and filled with passengers, It was shattered into pieces in Silivri.

According to the information obtained from the newspapers, the exact number of people killed is not given. Some say 80 passengers drowned, while others point out that 200 people drowned. The only thing known is; As a point of escape for Jews They chose Varna Port.

This journey, starting from the west of the Black Sea and extending towards Istanbul, was to escape the Nazis’ anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism atmosphere.

We have certainly heard that during and before the war, the ships that wanted to smuggle Jews to Palestine had sad endings. The scariest of these are Salvador and Struma. So we will consider Also for Salvador “death ship” It was said.

Salvador, which anchored from Varna Port on December 3, 1940, 20 meters long and 5 meters wide It was a wooden ship. He was too old to have the strength to travel or complete the journey. However, this ship was the only source of support for the passengers, who were mostly women and children.

The ship already had a capacity of 150 people, and it is written that 352 passengers boarded it. This is one of the most important details that invites disaster.

inside They included Jews from Poland, Romania and Bulgaria who escaped from the Nazis.. The ship arrived in Istanbul safely after its 3-day journey and would wait at the port to wait for the cold weather conditions to improve a little.

After 6 days of rest, inside the departing ship There was also a Turkish pilot and a medical officer. Bad weather conditions made an unexpected surprise: a storm that broke out at night destroyed the old ship.

Yeniciftlik The ship in the vicinity fell on piles and broke apart. First impressions of the accident indicate that a serious tragedy occurred.

First, the bodies of 69 passengers, including 38 women, 16 men and 15 children, were found.

According to the information received, the ship sank very quickly and some of the passengers climbed two masts; Still, there were no survivors. He blamed the accident on the people around him. guide Hüsnü Eren swimming towards the beach informed.

After learning of the accident, the gendarmes arrived in the area and went to the sea. Even though he was 80 meters away, he came across corpses in front of them and found unidentified corpses. They were immediately collected and shipped to Silivri. Of those who arrived in Silivri alive, 40 were women, 49 men and 19 children. Among them, there was a Russian captain and his two assistants who were managing the ship.

According to the information received from the Meteorology Station in Istanbul, it appears that the weather is windy and overcast.

In the news published by Cumhuriyet Newspaper “In the weather report dated January 11, 1940 Yesterday the weather in Istanbul was overcast and partly snowy, and the wind was blowing from the north at a speed of 6-8 meters per second. The maximum temperature is 2.3; recorded as at least 1.1 degrees Celsius below zero.” information is included.

Looking at other information received, it is written that on the same dates, different ships took shelter in the ports and did not move due to weather conditions. Salvador’s misfortune aside, a 100-ton ship Taking passengers beyond its capacity It is obvious that he has a big share in this.

Albert Farhi, one of the lucky ones who managed to escape the ship, described those moments as follows:

“A superhuman force threw me into the air. A few seconds later I hit the water and a few seconds later I surfaced again. Pieces of wood were falling from the air. I couldn’t see the ship. It had completely disappeared. The water was ice cold. The sea was full of people, men and women, trying to save themselves. These protruded from the shattered wooden sections of the Struma. All those in the metal parts of the ship (I would say that these were two-thirds of the passengers) were instantly suffocated. Many of the others lost their lives immediately.”

Albert Farhi with his family He rode Salvador when he was 21It all started in 1940, when the Bulgarian government deported non-Bulgarian Jews from the country. Jews were being killed in countries where their citizenship was not accepted. Even though the Germans had not yet invaded Bulgaria, it was obvious what German oppression meant.

Silivri native Hasan Sezen, who witnessed all this, also made a statement about what he saw:

Hasan Sezen describes what happened on that rare cold and stormy day in Silivri as follows: “There was no electricity in Silivri at that time. Early in the morning, our ship hit the rocks and sank in the area called Cambaz. At that time, such ships were coffin ship It was said. Because we were stranded in a shallow area, people could go out to sea, but the place they landed was a flat field.

They threw themselves into the sea and found themselves in a cold and wet environment. A truck driver passing by hours later came to Silivri and stopped in front of Hüseyin’s coffee house and said, ‘The bushes on the beach are full of corpses, send lifesaving teams’ said. When help arrived in the early morning hours, many were found frozen to death.

The bodies were loaded onto horse-drawn carriages and transported to the cemetery. The Jewish community in Silivri was of great assistance to the survivors and helped bury the dead. They hosted them in their homes. The fields were filled with corpses. Eventually the survivors were sent to Istanbul. At that time, the Jewish population was quite dense and they had their own neighborhoods. We remember people like Albert, Moiz and others, I wonder if they are still alive? People in our age group remember those days very well; Names such as Ekrem, Belkis mother, Bektaş are still in our memories.”

One has a hard time even imagining how terrifying this sight is.

People living in Silivri and the surrounding areas were doing their best to help the surviving Jewish citizens. But this would not be the end for the Jews. The most famous of these ships after 2 years strumashot down by the Soviets in 1944 Mefkure His ship also sank.

The dramatic stories of these ships go back to human history and history. resistance against genocide They were engraved in memories as painful examples.