Turkey and the Rescue of European Jews

I. Izzet Bahar

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317625988
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Holocaust History
• Index: History

This book exposes Turkish policies concerning European Jews during the Hitler era, focusing on three events: 1. The recruitment of German Jewish scholars by the Turkish government after Hitler came to power, 2. The fate of Jews of Turkish origin in German-controlled France during WWII, 3. The Turkish approach to Jewish refugees who were in transit to Palestine through Turkey. These events have been widely presented in literature and popular media as conspicuous evidence of the humanitarian policies of the Turkish government, as well as indications of the compassionate acts of the Turkish officials vis-à-vis Jewish people both in the pre-war years of the Nazi regime and during WWII. This volume contrasts the evidence and facts from a wealth of newly-disclosed documents with the current populist presentation of Turkey as protector of Jews.

1
Turkey’s Approach to Minorities, in Particular to the Jewish Minority, in the First 15 Years of the Republic

The Leadership Change in November 1938

The death of Atatürk on November 10, 1938, followed by the selection of İsmet İnönü as the second president of the young Turkish Republic, was a critical turning point in Turkish history. Interestingly, although Atatürk knew that his illness was a terminal one and although he had a short will (mostly on financial matters), he had not assigned nor even hinted at a successor. On the other hand, his illness was not kept secret from the public. Starting from the end of 1937, rumors circulated about his health, and his illness was widely known, especially among the dignitaries and diplomats in Ankara. Thus, it is possible to say that conditions were ripe for the growth of political intrigue towards the end of Atatürk’s life, as is common with such leadership changes. In spite of all those factors, just one day after Atatürk’s death, in a smooth transition, İnönü was proclaimed the new president of the Republic.

İnönü’s ascendance to the presidency by a high majority vote of the parliament and the non-existence of conspicuous frictions and political factionalism become even more remarkable when we consider İnönü’s unfavorable status at the time. Indeed, after being Atatürk’s prime minister for more than twelve years, İnönü was forced to resign in September 1937, and became just a simple member of the parliament bereft of all his duties, ready to be forgotten in political oblivion. According to Cemil Koçak, the smooth process of İnönü’s rise to the presidency can be seen as a reflection of affinity and confidence among upper echelon Turkish politicians and administrators.¹ Seemingly, a tacit agreement took place among the upper echelon of the state and played an important role in the election of İnönü as Atatürk’s successor. Indeed, with his balanced and sober character and his well-known cautious attitude, Inönü, the closest companion of Atatürk, was generally regarded as Atatürk’s complementary partner. Thus, both in the country and abroad, the transfer of power and office to İnönü was very well received. A report written by British Ambassador Sir Percy Loraine to London reflects the sentiments of the time:

The fact that the machine went on without a hitch after Atatürk’s death showed how natural and acceptable the choice was to all solid elements in the country. In point of fact, the Atatürk-Inönü combination had been ideal for Turkey. Atatürk supplied the large ideas, Inönü made them practical, was moreover responsible for everything else, and ran Turkey down to its smallest details. Atatürk’s brain worked brilliantly for a few hours out of twenty four and was then submerged; but Ismet’s brain if necessary, worked all twenty-four hours. Atatürk was the more compulsive of the two; he was capable of calling a man fool, and a few hours later, kissing him. But after Inönü considered a man fool or a knave, there was never any subsequent osculation. The people knew İsmet’s record and felt safe in his hands. They knew that İsmet had run the country to a great extent before Atatürk’s death, and he would now carry on the lines he had already laid down.²

The wide consensus in support of İnonu’s presidency and the lack of even feeble opposition gave İnönü, from the beginning, the opportunity to rule the country with absolute authority. Indeed, just after he came to power, in December 26, 1938, President İnönü’s title was embellished with a new designation: Milli Şef (National Chief).³ In the face of existing titles such as Il Duce or Der Führer and strengthening nationalistic waves spreading all over Europe, the new title of Milli Şef actually did not sound strange. For some time, a disturbing tension in Europe was increasing at a spiraling pace, and the expectation of an imminent war which would change political balances was gaining strength. Turkey, with its strategic position, was certainly affected by the political currents that were gaining popularity in other parts of the world. In fact, in the years after its foundation, Turkey was influenced by the evolving nationalist sentiments and ideologies gaining strength in almost all of Europe and by their effects on world politics.⁴ While Turkey never had had a typical buildup of bourgeois and elitist intellectuals in the past, she seemed much more receptive to the new absolutist ideas gaining ground in the West.

In addition to the turbulent international climate, Turkey had her own historical background, distinctive internal conditions and impulses, and more importantly, her nationalist drives. All these factors were decisive in conditioning her policies, beginning with the first days of İnönü’s presidency and continuing throughout WWII. In this chapter of the book, we will focus on the pre-1938 policies of Turkey that drove her nationalist trajectory. Upon analysis, Turkey’s approach to its minorities, in particular to its Jewish minority, Jewish immigrants, and Jews in general, during İnönü’s presidency after November 1938 and throughout WWII can be seen as extensions of approaches established in the previous era.

The official motto describing the first fifteen years of the newly founded republic can be summarized in broad outlines with one of the well-known sayings of Atatürk: “Peace at home, peace in the universe.” Any examination of the period necessitates a critical assessment of how much this dictum actually reflects both the intentions and politics of the period. Clearly, as mentioned above, the evolving intellectual and political nationalism and the changing political dynamics all over Europe had their impact on Turkish policy makers, administrative cadres, and intelligentsia. In addition to its influence on internal politics, the emergence of a new power balance in Europe created, on the one hand, new opportunities for Turkey to adopt more demanding strategies in its foreign policy; on the other hand, it urged the country to pursue cautious statesmanship and to give importance to establishing dependable alliances for her security in the midst of increasing aggression, particularly in the Mediterranean basin and in eastern Europe, adjacent to the Balkans.

We focus below on Turkey’s internal politics, Atatürk’s “peace at home,” and in particular, on the policy of Turkification, which from a social, cultural, and economic point of view dominated the internal political affairs of the state during this period.

Peace at Home

Ideology of Turkism

The emergence of Turkey as an independent country at the end of WWI is one of the most legendary episodes of modern history. It demonstrates how a nation could awaken under the guidance of an extraordinarily talented and determined leader, abolish all plans dictated by world powers, and gain its independence in spite of extremely dire conditions. After an arduous struggle on several fronts including the diplomatic front, the rebellious Ankara Government succeeded in becoming recognized as a new sovereign republic on the Anatolian peninsula and in Thrace, an extension of Europe, where the Ottoman Empire was initially born and began to grow.

The new nation considered itself founded on the ashes of the Ottoman Empire as a newly nascent entity. However, nothing in history emerges abruptly from nowhere; in contrast to some official nationalistic historical presentations, there is always a continuum in history. Indeed, the ruling elites of the new state were actually from the leading military and administrative cadres of the Empire. Thus, the dominant ideas, ideologies, and strategies of the last period of the Empire found further articulation by the new establishment. In particular, Turkism, one of the core doctrines of the Empire before its dissolution, found fertile ground in the young republic, whose transformation was more focused on the fatherland.

The ideology of “Turkism,”⁵ a powerful political movement in the Ottoman Empire, emerged after 1909⁶ as a reaction to the failed multi-national and multi-denominational concept of Ottomanism.⁷ In the early years of the nineteenth century, in parallel to the new nationalist stirring in Europe, the Empire also began to face nationalistic separatist sentiments and movements. First, the Serbs revolted and gained their autonomy in 1830. Then, the Greek uprising took place. The latter was more problematic for the Empire and concluded in 1830 with an independent Greek state. In each of these nationalist revolts, the European interference with claims to protect their co-religionists created discomfort for the Empire. The Empire felt the necessity to reshape the Ottoman polity by introducing a new theory of Ottomanism which redefined the Empire as a polity where all Muslim and non-Muslim subjects had equal rights. Also, the Empire promised its non-Muslim subjects more roles in governmental and administrative institutions.

The new reform policy of the Empire was proclaimed through two Imperial edicts. The first, known as Tanzimat Fermanı, was issued in 1839; and the second, Islahat Fermanı, an enhanced form of the first, was issued in 1856. In these two edicts, against the promise of increasing the individual rights of its non-Muslim subjects, the state curtailed their autonomous structure with intentions to control the separatist movements. Thus, these edicts would practically terminate the traditional Millet System.

However, the new theory of Ottomanism, the promises of reform, and the centralization of the Ottoman administration did not help in ending the disintegration of the Empire. These new policies did not change the aspirations of the separatists, nor did they create a new form of Ottoman patriotism among the ethnically and religiously different subjects of the Empire as desired. Furthermore, the Empire could not succeed in stopping the ongoing interventions of the Great Powers with her internal policies that were purported to protect the non-Muslim communities. More importantly, the Ottomanist reforms that were supposed to give additional rights to minorities failed in the long run.

Beginning in 1909, the Young Turks and their political organization İttihat ve Terakki (Committee of Union and Progress [CUP]) realized that all distinct peoples of the Empire, such as Arabs, Albanians, Greeks, Armenians, and many others, could not be amalgamated to form a single and united entity with a common aspiration. Indeed, the ongoing separatist and nationalist movements in the Balkans, the disastrous outcome of the Balkan wars in 1912 that resulted in miserable refugee convoys of ethnic Turks, and the Arab revolt of 1917 show how their concerns were justified. The conviction that it would be impossible to conciliate different national interests and attain a unified empire provoked the CUP to turn strongly toward Turkish nationalism.⁸

The governing elite of the newly founded republic, under the weight of their dismal past experiences and in a shrunken homeland that they could hardly hold, embraced the elements of Turkism more firmly. According to the nationalistic policies that they adopted with greater determination, Turkey would be the nation of people of Turkish ethnicity who were seen as the genuine and ancient people of the country.⁹ Even an official historical doctrine emerged which defined both the Sumerians and the Hittites as the ancestors of the Turkish people.¹⁰ The completely “new idea—that of Turkey—the land of Turks” was difficult to absorb even by the people who had “so long [been] accustomed [to] religious and dynastic loyalties.”¹¹ In harmony with the nationalist ideology, Turkish pride and self-respect were indoctrinated through a massive campaign and re-education program.¹² According to the introduced ideology, as the descendants of a great and noble nation which had sublime contributions to the past civilizations, Turks should be proud of themselves and their history. Under this somewhat xenophobic dictum, all people other than those of Turkish ethnicity were regarded as suspicious and as foreign elements who had to be absorbed within the Turkish majority. In 1925, Prime Minister İsmet İnönü stated this official policy quite clearly: “We are frankly nationalists … and nationalism is our only factor of cohesion. In the face of a Turkish majority other elements have no kind of influence. We must turkify the inhabitants of our land at any price, and we will annihilate those who oppose the Turks or ‘le Turquisme’”¹³ In a complementary nationalistic policy that accompanied Turkification, the immigration of Turkish ethnics to the country was facilitated by offering land and special concessions with the intention to populate the country with more ethnic Turks.¹⁴

Minorities of Different Ethnicities

In the early 1920s, the demographic character of Turkey was far from homogenous. Other than non-Muslim religious minorities, i.e., Greeks, Armenians, and Jews,¹⁵ there were also numerous groups that were all Muslim in religion, but ethnically dissimilar. In order to meld those diverse Muslim ethnic groups together, most of whom had roots in the lands where they had lived for centuries, the description of Turkish ethnicity was kept wide enough to encompass all diverse ethnic backgroun...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Turkey’s Approach to Minorities, in Particular to the Jewish Minority, in the First 15 Years of the Republic
• PART I German Scholars in Turkey
• PART II Jews of Turkish Origin in France
• PART III Turkey and the Jewish Refugee Problem
• Conclusion
• Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index