The House of Representatives was asked by Congressman Samuel Dickstein to take a stand on the Strume disaster which caused the death of more than 750 Rumanian Jews who were refused admission to Palestine.
“I feel that some definite stand on behalf of human rights taken by this House will perhaps avoid a similar disaster in the future,” Congressman Dickstein said. “I cannot permit that human lives be placed in jeopardy simply because it does not suit a particular group or government to help human beings who are hunted on the face of the earth and cannot find a place to rest.”
Congressman Dickstein quoted to the House the reports of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on the Strume sinking outside the Bosphorus and on the statement issued by the Jewish Agency for Palestine condemning the refusal to have the Strume refugees admitted to Palestine under the immigration quota. He pointed out that it does not matter whether any government wishes to accept the responsibility for the tragic death of the Jewish refugees. “The important thing,” he said, “is that our civilized society did not know how to save the lives of 750 refugees who, in escaping persecution from their own country, found death on the high seas.”
Reporting on his efforts to establish the facts of the Strume tragedy, Congressman Dickstein said: “The event calls for the strongest expression of public indignation by the people of the United States. The event itself may not mean much in these days when war news dealing with the fate of millions of people crowds the pages of our newspapers, but the death at sea of 750 persons is not something to be slurred over or disregarded even in these troubled times.”
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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.
