Officer, who was Bulgarian. Stoliar later claimed the officer told him that he saw the torpedo before it sank the Struma. The officer died overnight. After his rescue Stoliar was detained in Turkey for six weeks. After an outcry and strike in Palestine, Turkish authorities released him to Simon Brod. Afterwards British authorities acquiesced and issued him travel papers and a visa to Palestine; Brod put him on the train to Palestine. British authorities in Palestine interviewed Stoliar about the Struma sinking. He later joined the British Army, in which he served in the 8th Army in North Africa. After the war Stoliar's father Jacob survived the Second World War. They learned that in 1942 the authorities in German-occupied France had deported David's mother, along with her stepson by her second marriage, to their deaths in the Auschwitz -Birkenanu death and slave labour concentration-death camp complex. David married his first wife, Adria, in 1945, by whom he had a son, and served in the Israeli army in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. After the war Stoliar worked in the oil industry and in shoe manufacturing. Adria died in 1961 and he married his second wife, Marda, in 1968. David lived and worked in Japan and then moved to the United States. He and Marda settled in Bend, Oregon. He died on 1 May 2014 at the age of 91. References Further reading McFadden, Robert (2016). "David Stoliar, Survivor of World War II Disaster, Dies at 91", New York Times, 23 January 2016 (delayed obituary). External links David Stoliar on Yad Vashem website Romanian emigrants to Israel People from Bend, Oregon Romanian Jews Romanian people of World War II History of the Republic of Turkey British Army personnel of World War II Sole survivors 1922 births 2014 deaths