November 01, 2009
Dear Mac,
you will not know me and I have - up to my knowledge - no personal record concerning a relation to one or more
of the survival or human losses of the Athenia.
But since I have read Cay Rademacher's book which - by chance - I had come to buy immediately after being on
the market, I am very much in search for the personal stories of the people onboard of the Athenia back in
1939 as I had been so several years ago with passengers and staff of the Titanic.
Thus, I have started to read your website content about the whole story (your website, by the way, is
recommended in Cay's book), and have come to cover some very personal and interesting facts.
From the list of those who have not survived, my mind got stuck with the Stotland (F. and Rebecca / Rebekka)
children, apparently stateless - skimming content and all of a sudden getting fixed onto something apparently
of lesser interest resulting in a great effort to get to know exactly this detail is typical for me.
Whereas at the end of this list you do seem to question the Stotland children's direction after all on behalf of
being stateless, another report states that they are of Polish Jewish origin. And, interestingly enough, within
the 30 pages manuscript of Ruth on your very website ("Letter dated 22 September 1939 from Ruth, a survivor of S.S. Athenia"), there seems to be a hint that they might have come from Danzig (cf. page 3 at the very end).
Now, since I have not found any other piece of information, is there some more news about Isaac Stotland, his wife and the fate of their children you do know of?
Maybe, in the end, I should explain, why I am so keen on knowing these details: For my professional origin, I am
a German senior surgeon with many intellectual interests and a proper company to run in the business of software development in the medical market. As a father of 4 children (aging from 23 to 4), due to my more than 20 years experience in the field of medicine and my personal feelings towards parents losing their children
(e. g. from trauma or injuries) or surviving them, I carry many emotions with those remaining. Furthermore,
irrespective of the "bad momentum's" origin such as war or any other kind of aggression, I want to deeply
understand why it is so simple that by some unthoughtful action taken in a snap of time a whole family stem can
be brought to extinction (as this was so often the case during WW I and WW II and many other prior and
aftercoming war events).
For this reason I would be very grateful if you returned some understanding on your side for my interest and
provided me with the information available I might not have seen.
Best regards from Regensburg in Germany
Markus Mohr
Hello Marcus,
I regret that I do not have any further details of F and Rebecca Stotland who died when Athenia was sunk, nor can I find anymore about them.
You should see this URL: http://www.mikekemble.com/ww2/athenia.html for various details about the Athenia sinking, but nothing more on the Stotlands.
Sorry I cannot help you further.
Regards,
Mac.
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