
10-12-2006
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Concerned Citizen
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Member Since: Apr 2006
Location: Turkey
Posts: 59
   
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Re: Haymatloz in Istanbul - German Jews in Turkey during WW II
Quote:
Originally Posted by DGG
A very interesting piece of history that I was not aware of.
It said in the article: "In 1944, Turkey entered the war on the Allied side. All Germans, whether Nazis or their opponents, were now suddenly considered enemy aliens. Many of them were interned. The Rubens were no exception." Still, I guess this was better for the German Jews than if Turkey would have joined the Axis powers, something the Brits feared it would do in the beginning of the war.
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Turkey's insistence on neutrality was related to early republican policy of avoiding participation in conflicts. They tried to follow it until the Korean War, when USSR threat became more visible.
On the other hand the neutrality was undoubtedly, good for many Jews who were saved in the process:
Only after it was asured of an Allied victory, and the impossibility of a German invasion, by late 1943, was it [Turkey] ready to enter the war. Even then, however, it reacted to appeals for delay from the Jewish Agency, which understood that immediate Turkish entry would cut off the escape routes through Turkey which were enabling thousand of Jews to escape the Nazis throughout Europe, postponing its entry for almost a year.While six million Jews were being exterminated by the Nazis, the rescue of some 15,000 Turkish Jews from France, and even of some 100,000 Jews from Eastern Europe might well be considered as relatively insignificant in comparison. It was, however, very significant to the people who were rescued, and above all it showed that, as had been the case for more than five centuries, Turks and Jews continued to help each other in times of great crises.
http://www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/044/5.html
Its[Turkey's] diplomats and consuls in Germany and German occupied countries used their diplomatic status to intervene on behalf of resident Turkish Jews who otherwise would have been subjected to the same persecution as that suffered by Jews who were citizens of the European countries occupied by the Nazis. In France, where we have most information, this work ws carried out by the Turkish Embassy to France, which was located at Vichy starting in 1941, as well as by the Turkish consulates-general at Paris and Marseilles, the latter moved to Grenoble after Germany occupied much of southern France following Italy's withdrawal from the war late in 1943. The Turkish diplomats who were most involved in this work, and who went to great lengths to protect Turkish Jews, often at the risk of their own lives, were at the Paris consulate, Consul-Genrals Cevdet Dülger from 1939 until 1942 and Fikret Sefik Özdoganci from 1942 until 1945, and Vice Consul Namik Kemal Yolga, who remained in Paris throughout the war. At Marseilles there were Consul Generals Bedi'i Arbel from 1940 until 1943 and Mehmed Fuad Carim, from June 1943 until 1943 and Vice Consul Necdet Kent, who like Ambassador Yolga remained in France until the end of the war.
http://sefarad.realroot.com/lm/043/6.html
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