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The sin of Struma
“Whatever you see, that is what you will be”Bahar FEYZAN
This was my grandmother’s motto. She was born in a small village in Edirne and started her life in Istanbul with my grandfather. She was of a generation that had truly felt war and hardship. I was a child and my grandmother would explain at length; “Whatever you see, that is what you will be.”
I would ask; “What do you mean? If I look at pain, will I be in pain?” In response she would smile.
She would say; “Don’t ever turn away from pain, no one really carefully look there, they are afraid. If you do not pity pain it will not scare you. Feel sorry for others, but never see yourself superior and pity them. If you do this the whole world will open itself up to you.” I would stare at her in puzzlement. It took me years to understand. I later thought that Struma picked me thanks to my grandmother’s conscience.
I remember the day I decided to write about disaster. It was the time that current Member of Parliament Sırrı Süreyya Önder was also working as a writer. While we were working on a script, the subject of Struma was brought up. He put down the notes in his hand, placed his glasses on the table and stared at me. Hitting his hand against the table with the feeling that he had discovered something big, he made an ‘Aha’ sound. Following this, he said “Girl[J1] , you are the best person to write about this subject.” I laughed at the fact that he was talking about a novel even before I had even finished the script I was working on. However, history proved me wrong. On January 2014, when I held my novel ‘Struma, Traveller of Love’ in my hands, a different kind of smile played across my face.
After the novel was published I faced the same question from all corners of the press. Why had I written about this subject? Did I have an agenda or had someone perhaps ordered such a novel to be written! I stated my explanation as I dealt with many such roundabout questions. The fact that such a tragedy occurred in the country I lived in was reason enough for me to write about it. Furthermore, what I was doing was lifting the thick dark cover that had been pulled over those who had faced injustice. It was combining my pen with a fragment of my universal responsibility.
It was then, when I had started explaining before the press, that I also sent “Struma, Traveller of Love” to the Minister of Culture Omer Celik. He said that he read it and indicated some parts which he did not agree with.
In the time that has passed, the final remaining passenger of the ship David Stoliar passed away on May 2014. The witnesses had been reduced one by one and no witnesses remained other than books.
I have spoken on Struma to many different echelons of the state, to those who did not know of the event and every time that I travelled abroad. Not only through my efforts, thanks to many years of effort and trying, Zulfu Livaneli’s novel Serenad and the efforts of many other people, today Struma has become a visible issue in Turkey.
Of course the first statement made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in relation to Struma was not enough. According to the text, those who were defined in accordance with the conditions of the time as “people we tried to keep alive” with their boat departed on their eternal voyage for reasons unknown. Even though the notes of history have unfortunately proved that the mooring ropes of the ship with the broken engine had been untied by Turkey… Even if it was involuntarily.
Without knowing that the days in which they remained silent was being an accessory to a crime. Without understanding that saying “I didn’t do anything” was the greatest crime of “not doing anything.”
Whatever I say about the disaster in which almost eight hundred innocent people died painfully pales in comparison. I do not mean expressing pity by saying “Vah vah” (Oh woe). Quite the opposite, by showing great admiration and respect towards those on the Struma’s search for a life that was befitting of human dignity, the risks they took to achieve this and their struggle to hold on to life.
On 24 February 2015, those who lost their lives on the Struma were commemorated at the Sepetciler Kasri in Sarayburnu in a ceremony that was being hosted by the state for the first time. In his speech, Minister of Culture Omer Celik defined it as “A ship that set sail towards its own destiny”. “The pain belongs to all of us. To keep our mind and conscience alive, to ensure such pain is not experienced again, we will never let this event be forgotten.” His words were of the impression that he did not stand alongside the anti-Semitic comments that were being expressed politically and most lately frequently by the government. He expressed a courtesy as he avoided mentioning other ships and events that some other politicians also featured in their speeches. He should be congratulated for such an approach. Because respect towards pain is not simply handled by arranging a ceremony, it should be handled sensitively by not sandwiching other pains in between.
After the ceremony I approached him. When I said “My book has been effective”, we both smiled.
We, with all of the participants at the ceremony, looked at Struma from beyond time and we are Struma. Envision people who departed this life by being torn apart on a wooden ship. Their greatest ‘sin’ was to hold on to life. The most beautiful of ‘sins’.
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