The bodies of 199 Jewish refugees attempting to emigrate “illegally” to Palestine, who drowned in December 1940 off the coast of Turkey when their vessel, the San Salvador, capsized in a storm, will be reinterred with state honors August 31 on Mount Herzl here, it was announced today.
Of the 323 refugees aboard the 65-foot vessel when it went down, 120 were rescued. All but four of the bodies were recovered, and buried in the Turkish village of Salivara. The immigrants had boarded the ship in Bulgaria.
The reinterment is being sponsored by a public committee headed by Moshe Sharett, chairman of the Jewish Agency executive, in cooperation with the Israel Government, the Bulgarian Immigrants Association, the mayors of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and the Yad Vashem documentation center.
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