A commemoration ceremony was held Friday in Istanbul for the victims of the 1942 Struma disaster in which 768 people died.

The Struma disaster marks an incident in which hundreds of people were killed when a vessel carrying Jewish refugees was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the Black Sea.

"We will commemorate those who lost their lives in this tragic incident that occurred 81 years ago with a ceremony to be held in Istanbul today," Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanju Bilgic said in a statement.

The Struma vessel, carrying Jewish refugees fleeing the persecution of Nazis and their allies during World War II, was torpedoed by a Soviet submarine in the international waters of the Black Sea on Feb. 24, 1942, resulting in the deaths of 768 people, including 108 children.

Türkiye joined the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2008, an intergovernmental body established in 1998 to coordinate political and social support for Holocaust education, remembrance, research and combat anti-Semitism.

Since 2015, the government has been represented at Holocaust commemoration ceremonies in the country. The country is also credited with reaching out to Jews fleeing the Nazi regime. In the 1930s, Türkiye received more than 130 academics fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany, and those academics are known for their pioneering contributions to science in the country.

Selahattin Ülkümen, Turkish consul general on the Greek island of Rhodes, is a well-known figure of that time. He is credited with saving 42 Jewish families who were to be sent to concentration camps in Europe by confronting the officer commanding the Nazi forces that were taking over the island and convincing him to release the Jewish Turks on the island. Ülkümen provided the Jews with Turkish passports to ensure their safe journey to Türkiye.