The Struma was a ship chartered by a group of 769 Romanian Jews in 1941 to take them to Mandatory Palestine. Although not at all seaworthy, the Struma sailed from Constanza on  December 12, 1941. Three days later its engine died and it was towed to Istanbul. None of the passengers had permits to enter Turkey, and only a handful had British visas (expired) for Palestine. The Turkish authorities refused to let the passengers disembark and rejected proposals by Jewish organizations to move them to Jewish-funded camps on Turkish soil. Protracte…