Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Struma is a medical term for the enlargement of the thyroid; it is sometimes used in reference to scrofula, a form of tuberculosis. The Struma was a ship commissioned by the Zionist organizations in Romania to carry 769 Romanian Jews to British-controlled Palestine. It set sail on December 12 1941 from Constanta and after three days it reached Istanbul where it had to wait for the British permits to enable them to continue their journey toward Palestine. The ship remained in the Istanbul harbour and the Turkish government forced the passengers to remain on the ship since they were afraid that the British would refuse to grant the permits and they'd have to remain in Turkey. During the secret negotiations between the Zionist organizations and the British, the most that Britain offered was permits for the children to enter Palestine. This offer was rejected (by the passengers or by the Turks; it isn't clear). After 70 days, the Struma was forced back into the Black Sea, where it was sunk by a Russian submarine on February 24 1942. Only one person survived. External Links Struma: A Romanian Tragedy - List of victims The Struma is also a river in Bulgaria and Greece. See Strymon. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.