Turkey and the Holocaust

Until recently historical documentation of Turkey and the Holocaust was nonexistent. This is especially so in the English language literature. Relying predominantly on documents obtained from archives of the Turkish, French, U.S. and German foreign services, Stanford J. Shaw provided the first comprehensive discussion of this subject. Following the Nazi takeover in 1933, Turkey offered rights of safe passage to Jewish refugees from Eastern and Central Europe who had entry permits to Palestine, a British Mandate.

However the British Colonial Office took every step possible to restrict such migrations as it played to the will of the Arab nation and assured a steady supply of oil. In a House of Commons debate on July 20, 1939, Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, the Colonial Secretary, had to admit that a 'Division of Destroyers' supported by five smaller launches was being employed to ascertain that those who had escaped Hitler did not escape the British capture as they approached Palestine [PRO House of Commons Debates, July 20, 1939] the ships had been authorized to open fire at or into any ship that was suspected of having illegal immigrants on board and that did not obey the warning to stand by.

Pediatrician Albert Eckstein was influential in persuading ministers of Turkey's government to let European Jews go through Turkey, thus saving over 20,000 Jews from extermination, including the "222 Transport" carrying 233 Jews from Bergen Belsen to Palestine via Turkey in July 1944. In 1941 alone 4,400 Jewish escapees from Nazism were known to have passed through Turkey on their way to Palestine, according to historian Y. Slutsky. However, based on her Ph.D. dissertation, "Illegal immigration to Palestine during the Second World War I939-1942", Dalia Ofer wrote that "according to the most optimistic of the reliable estimates, 10,000 people were rescued via Istanbul." She recognizes however that: "There are those who claim that 20,000 were rescued, but this is undoubtedly an exaggeration." To this one should add the fact that via the official channels alone during the war, 16,474 Jewish refugees managed to find their way to Palestine through Turkey. The highest estimate of the total number is offered by historian Stanford Shaw who claims that 100,000 passed through Turkey "by the end of the war."

In a House of Commons debate on July 20, 1939, Mr. Malcolm MacDonald, the Colonial Secretary, had to admit that a 'Division of Destroyers' supported by five smaller launches was being employed to ascertain that those who had escaped Hitler did not escape the British capture as they approached Palestine [PRO House of Commons Debates, July 20, 1939] the ships had been authorized to open fire at or into any ship that was suspected of having illegal immigrants on board and that did not obey the warning to stand by. </ref> Although fairly restrictive in its immigration policies at all time, Turkey did allow in a number of emigres whose lives were at risk. All were eminent intellectuals who were invited by the Turkish government to help modernize Turkey’s higher education, legal structure, health care systems, and the arts.

The fact that the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine, had several operatives working in Turkey for a number of years prior to and throughout World War II is well documented. Documented also is the fact that all but about four worked in secret as their work was not sanctioned by the Turkish government. The lion’s share of their activities involved having Jewish refugees from Europe pass through Turkey to Palestine—a contravention of British government policy. However, according to Tuvia Friling, an Israeli historian "...in February 1941, these contacts bore fruit. The Turks promulgated the ‘Law Regulating the Passage through Turkey for Jewish Immigrants Oppressed in their Countries of Origin.’ The order was publicized in the Turkish press and over Radio Ankara, and Turkish consuls were instructed to issue transit visas to refugees who would come in groups and continue on their way to Palestine. The British embassy and representatives of the Jewish Agency also received official notification of the Turkish government’s decision."

Not so well documented is the fact that the Yishuv’s workings did not go unnoticed by either the Jewish or the Nazi German communities in Istanbul. Even less-documented is the fact that these activities made a few members of the Jewish-German community in Turkey somewhat nervous. Such a response would have been only natural. All along, the Yishuv was doing all it could to get Turkey allied with England or at least to keep it neutral. Its leaders, Ben Gurion and Chaim Weizmann, were both following up on Atatürk’s personal request to intercede in Turkey’s quest for loans among the West’s financial community. The Yishuv’s leadership was not at all certain on which side Turkey would ultimately come down.

In late July of 1944, the Germans began deporting the Jewish population on the Nazi occupied Greek island of Rhodes. According to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem’s Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, Selahattin Ülkümen, the Turkish consul-general managed to save approximately 50 of its 1700 Jews, 13 of them Turkish citizens, the rest having some Turkish connection. In protecting those who were not Turkish citizens, he clearly acted on his own initiative. Ülkümen was declared Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem Foundation of Israel on 13 December 1989, with his name being inscribed and a tree planted in his honor at the "Path of the Righteous."

Footnotes

• Reisman, A. (2007) “Turkey’s Invitations to Nazi Persecuted Intellectuals Circa 1933: A Bibliographic Essay on History’s Blind Spot” Available on http://ssrn.com/abstract=993310 </ref>

• Reisman, A. (2006) Turkey's Modernization: Refugees from Nazism and Atatürk's Vision Washington, DC: New Academia Publishers.(2006) 306

• Slutsky, Y. History of the Hagana, vol. III: From Resistance to War. Zionist Library, Tel Aviv. (1972) 171

• Ofer, D. “The Jewish Agency Delegation in Istanbul (1943)”, in: Gutman, Y. and Zoroff, E. (editors) Rescue Attempts during the Holocaust, Gefen Publishing, Jerusalem. (1977) 437

• Ibid.

• Slutsky (1972) pg 171

• Shaw (1993 p 266)

• Reisman TURKEY'S MODERNIZATION

At times commingled with the Jewish Agency for Palestine, the officially recognized body, entity, or organization, officially recognized by both Turkey and Britain to represent the Yishuv.

• Friling, T. (2001) Studies in Russian and East European Jewish History and Culture. Shvut 10 (26), Research Center, Ben-Gurion University, Israel. 267

• Friling, T. (2005) Arrows in the dark, Universtiy of Wisconsin Press.

• Madison WI. Friling, T (2002). Between Friendly and Hostile Neutrality: Turkey and the Jews during World War II. In Ed. Rozen, M. The last Ottoman Century and Beyond: The Jews of Turkey and the Balkans 1808-1945. The Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center. 309-423.

• Also see Frantz, D. and Collins, C. (2003). Death on the Black Sea: The Untold Story of the 'Struma' and World War II's Holocaust at Sea, Harper Collins Canada. and Rubin B. Istanbul Intrigues. Pharos Books, New York (1992).

• Friling (2001) 332

• Friling (2001) 323

• http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/044/5.html; Viewed 18 November 2007

• http://www1.yadvashem.org/new_museum/turkey.pdf. Viewed 18 November 2007