Mr. A. J. Freiman, president of the Zionist Organization of Canada, announced today that he has cabled, on behalf of the organization, to Lord Cranborne, the British Colonial Minister, expressing “profoundest grief at a tragedy which need never have taken place,” the drowning of the more than 750 Jewish refugees of the Struma in the Black Sea. “Poles, Czechs, Greeks and other non-Jewish victims of the Nazis are admitted to Palestine in the thousands; shall this privilege be denied to Jewish victims of the same persecution?” the message asked.
“Nothing now can save the lives of those hundreds who sought a haven of refuge and found only a grave in the sea,” the cable added. “But the ideals of justice demand that future Jewish immigration into Palestine shall be based upon the historical claims of the Jewish people, consecrated in the Balfour declaration, and on those humanitarian principles for which the United Nations are fighting today.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.