JANCU AND THE STRUMA

                                                      by Joel Ives
                                                jives@concentric.net
                                   Article published in "RomSig" newsleter

        During 1942 the Jews of Europe were abandoned by the world.  Even those few that were able to flee the Nazis horrors and Romanian Pogroms faced other inhospitable countries such as Great Britain, whose paralysis and primary concern with international politics, also caused the demise of many.  Some desperately sailed on unseaworthy ships dubbed "coffin ships" toward harbors that were closed to them.  The most tragic of
these stories involved the S.S. Struma, which left from Constanza in Romania.
        We believe, aboard this vessel, our relative "Uncle Jancu" sought to save himself and his family and make his way to the British-mandate of Palestine by sailing across the Black Sea.  This conclusion was arrived at in September 1996 based only on the scant
knowledge that Jancu's ship sunk in the Black Sea and he was never heard of again and the fact that a search of the passenger list  obtained from the Hadassah archives in Israel revealed someone named "Itik Iancu, age 68", which would be the correct surname and the correct age.
        "Uncle Jancu (Yancu)" was a successful dress designer and manufacturer in Romania.  He was born about 1874 (based on the ship's manifest.) He visited our family in New York City on February 16, 1924 and 37 people turned out to greet him including the Iskowitz family, Glucks, Bergmans, Solomons, Sheinis' and his brother David Jancu and sisters, Anna and Lisa.  Jancu observed the difficult life in America and his relative's
surroundings in Harlem in 1924 and shortly after returned to Bucharest where he lived in a large house with servants. Jancu observed his relatives washing dishes and said that in Romania he had servants doing this task. Years earlier Jancu had a dress shop in Bucharest, where many of the young women in our family apprenticed and learned the sewing trade.  Adela Marcus Itzkowitz, Golda Sheinis Itzkowitz and Carrie Solomon Gluck as young girls worked for "Uncle Jancu."    The story told is that the Queen Mother came by his shop one day and looked in his shop window and fell in love with his craftsmanship and design.  He became a favorite of the Royal Court and produced dresses for the "Ladies-in-Waiting."
        Jancu must have had a fairly good life in Romania until World Ware II broke out.  Unfortunately, the late 1930's and 1940's were chaotic in Romania.  There was no safe place for someone who was a Jew and who had earned his living servicing King Carol II and his Queen.  Jancu must have felt his life was in danger and sought refuge.  King Carol II abdicated in September 1940 and a combination government consisting of the Fascist semi-revolutionary Iron Guard and the Army headed by Ion Antonescu took over.   On October 5, 1940, the state expropriated the land of Jews and on November 16, 1940 a decree was passed dismissing Jews employed in private commerce.  Jancu was probably robbed of his possessions although at this point in time he was lucky to have been one
of the 350,000 Jews of "Old Romania" (Bucharest Region) because in the West (Transylvania) 150,000 Jews were engulfed in Hungarian deportations while the 300,000 Jews in the East (Bessarabia) experienced destruction from both the Romania people as well as the German "Einsatzgruppen."
        On March 27, 1941, the Romanian State was permitted to expropriate Jewish
homes.
        The Struma was a 180-ton Romanian vessel which was said to be designed carry about a hundred passengers on coastal runs in the Black Sea.  On December 16, 1941, the Struma picked up someone named "Itik Iancu" (Iancu is the Romanian spelling of the name) and 768 other refugees and began an uncertain voyage to Haifa, Palestine, although none of the passengers had British permits which would permit them to enter the country.  The ship flew the Panamanian flag.  The ship's agents had given their word that a new engine had been provided and they promised that they would obtain immigration certificates in Istanbul.  However, the Struma was last used only as a ramshackle cattle boat which in it's finer days had been built as a river boat for the Danube.  The Bulgarian Captain informed the Turkish port authorities that since his country was an enemy with Britain he could not take the ship through the Dardanelles
which would lead to the Aegean and eventually to Palestine.
        The passengers, with Itik Iancu among them, feared that the islands in the Aegean were occupied by German and Italian troops and tried  to get a Turkish captain.  Meanwhile, under Arab pressure, the Turkish authorities refused to let the passengers set foot on land.  The Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Community in Istanbul provided food and medicine for the Struma, but they could not could not dock the ship and unload the passengers and the vessel was not seaworthy.  These refugees were stranded, they could not stay nor could they leave.
        The Struma became an international problem.  The ship was carrying more than
seven times its normal passengers' capacity and had a leaking hull and defective engines.  It had come to this disastrous stop off the coast of Istanbul in neutral waters.  Turkish authorities would not allow the passengers to disembark unless they obtained British passports.  The British refused.  The Struma remained at anchor in the Bospherus for 10
weeks while the world watched.
        On February 24th, although the captain announced that his ship was not seaworthy, the Turks towed the Struma in the Black Sea without adequate water, food or fuel.  Before the vessel faded from view, the  people ashore read the large banner made by the passengers announcing to the world, "SAVE US."  That night, six miles from the shore, the Struma exploded and sank.  It is still controversial as to whether it capsized, struck a mine or was hit by a German or a Russian torpedo.  Seventy children, 269 women and 428 men drowned.  Among them Itik Iancu, age 68 (born 1874) and possibly his children, Sofia Iancu, aged 40 (born 1902) and Moise Iancu, aged 30 (born 1912).
        David Stolier was the only passenger to survive by swimming to safety.  He remembered the blast and in the icy winter water held onto a piece of wood and then a bench.  He survived the night he said because of his leather coat and the following
morning was picked up by a small Turkish boat.  The other survivor was a  pregnant woman, Medea Salamovitz, who was allowed to leave the ship and go shore.
        Immediately after the Struma's departure, local British officials received approval to issue Palestine certificates to the children.  The lateness of this communication cost 70 children their lives.  The world was outraged, but the British Government remained
unaffected.   Undersecretary for the Colonies said, "It is not in our power to give guarantees nor take measures of a nature that may compromise the present policy regarding illegal immigration."   A monument was dedicated to the ill-fated S.S. Struma in the Jewish Cemetery in Bucharest.  It contains an inscription blaming "Capitalists"
for the death of the refugees.  Thirty-six years later in 1978, a Soviet naval history disclosed that the "unguarded" Struma had been sunk by a Soviet submarine.  The Soviet history added the names of the soviet "heros" who "demonstrated exemplary courage in the action."
        In 1996 the fate of the Struma has not faded into oblivion.  In research on the Internet I've found that a student at Northwestern University had a web page about the Struma.  Simeon Saveanu, an Israeli journalist wrote a book about the tragedy and has petitioned the Israeli government to do an investigation.  He suggests bringing the ship up from the bottom of the Black Sea.  The Israeli Maritime Museum has information about the incident and someone named Radu Manoliu went to Romania to do research since his brother-in-law was on the ship.  When I discovered that possibly "Uncle Jancu" was on a ship that sunk in the Black Sea I obtained the passenger list of the Struma and confirmed that there were three Jancu's (spelled "Iancu" in Romanian) on the ship.  All
the facts check, but we still need to do further research to verify that our relatives were on this particular ship and to bring great-uncle Jancu's memory back to our family.
        For some reason the details of this story did not pass down to the many people who were related to Jancu.  We look at his face in the 1924 photo and have reason to piece together this story from various conversations, from history books, and from the Internet.  If a family can only survive based on what it remembers, it is our obligation to put these few facts together to remember a man who is in our bloodline.  We should study our ancestors for many reasons, one of which is to develop a sense of who
you are by understanding where you've come from.  This is not a conscious concern for most people.  However, even though we are distant relatives,  we owe it to Jancu who died in this way and to remember him.
        We believe Jancu is the great-granduncle of Joel Ives.