MV Mefküre

MV ''Mefküre'' (often referred to as ''Mefkura'') was a Turkish wooden-hulled motor schooner chartered to carry Jewish Holocaust refugees from Romania to Istanbul, sailing under the Turkish and Red Cross flags. On 5 August 1944 a Soviet submarine sank her in the Black Sea by shellfire, killing more than 300 refugees.

Final voyage and sinking

On 3 August 1944 three small old merchant ships, overcrowded with about 1,000 Jewish refugees, left the Romanian port of Constanța at about 20:30 hrs. Sailing instructions from the German naval authorities were for ''Morina'' with 308 passengers to sail first, followed by ''Bulbul'' with 390 people, and lastly by ''Mefküre'' with 320 refugees (the exact number may be slightly different) on board. The vessels were ordered to sail from position 43°43'N 29°08'E strictly southward, which would lead them directly into the Bosphorus. Armed ships of the Romanian Navy escorted the convoy and provided signal flags to aid their passage from the harbour and through the mined area of the approaches.

On 5 August 1944, about 40 minutes after midnight ''Mefküre'' was about northeast of İğneada in Turkey when flares from an unknown vessel illuminated her. ''Mefküre'' failed to respond and carried on. In the same night, at 02:00 hrs, the German radio direction-finding station at Cape Pomorie in the Gulf of Burgas intercepted a radio signal of the Soviet , , with a bearing of 116 degrees. "This bearing crossed the course of ''Mefkure'' and the two Turkish vessels almost exactly at the area where ''Mefkure'' was sunk during that night." The German historian Jürgen Rohwer claimed ''Shch-215'' as the vessel which then attacked. ''Shch-215'' fired 90 rounds from her 45-mm guns and 650 rounds from her 7.62 mm machine guns. ''Mefküre'' caught fire and sank. Her captain, Kazım Turan, and six of his crew escaped in the only available lifeboat, but only five of the refugees survived. The number of refugees killed is unknown, but one estimate suggests it includes 37 children.

On 30 July 1944 submarine ''Shch-215'', under command of Captain 3rd Rank AI Strizhak, had departed from Batum, operating at the approaches off Burgas. This submarine, on the night of 5 August, claimed the sinking of a big schooner with about 200 armed men aboard, answering the attack with rifles and light machine guns, and in addition one "barkass", possibly a life boat. ''Shch-215'' made the attack in position 42.00'N 28°42'E, at a distance of westward from the ordered course of ''Mefküre''.

A fortnight after the sinking a JTA news report alleged that three German surface craft had sunk ''Mefküre''. The same report stated that ''Bulbul'' had been intercepted, too, but was allowed to proceed after identifying herself; at daybreak she rescued ''Mefküre''s survivors. ''Bulbul'' continued to İğneada, whence her 395 refugees and the five surviving ''Mefküre'' refugees continued by road and rail to Istanbul. ''Morina'' also reached Turkey, and refugees from both ships continued overland to Palestine.

Memorials

There are memorials to those killed aboard ''Mefküre'' at the Giurgiului Cemetery in the south of Bucharest in Romania and at Ashdod in Israel.

See also

*Aliyah Bet
*Patria disaster
*Struma disaster

References

Further reading

* includes 19 documents and a list of 302 passengers (victims) of the ''Mefkure''
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External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mefkure
1929 ships
1944 in Romania
Aliyah
History of the Republic of Turkey
Jewish Romanian history
Maritime incidents in August 1944
Rescue of Jews during the Holocaust
Romania in World War II
World War II ships of Turkey
Ships sunk by Soviet submarines
Soviet Union–Turkey relations
Schooners
World War II shipwrecks in the Black Sea
Jewish immigrant ships
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement