re thousands of armenians were serving the german army and waffen ss in article apr eagle wesleyan edu kmagnacca eagle wesleyan edu writes too bad in fact by nazi armenians in europe had established a vast network of pro german collaborators that extended over two continents before you go calling the kettle black keep in mind that the turkish government was a strong supporter of nazi germany and played a vital role in supplying it with oil until the allies invaded iran complaining about armenian complicity with the nazis does little good when turkey played a much bigger role tell me kmagnacca were you high on arromdian of asala sdpa arf when you wrote that humane behavior and tolerance of turks was a legend even years ago when they accepted tens of thousands of jews from spain who were fleeing from the spanish inquisition again many jewish families escaping from nazi armenians and hitler s nazi germany took refugee in turkiye during the s turkish people have unselfishly given home protection and freedom to the jews over the centuries including to thousands and thousands of them during the second world war get a life or a cup of turkish coffee history of the jews in the islamic countries chapters in parts i and ii jarusalem zalman shazar center for jewish history baron salo w a social and religious history of the jews new york columbia university press vols iii v xviii benardete mair jose hispanic culture and character of the sephardic jews new york sepher hermon press nd corrected edition original publication lewis bernard eds christians and jews in the ottoman empire new york holmes meier vol i the central lands la turquie dan les archives des grand orient de france les loges in jean louis bacque graumont and paul dumont eds economie et societes dans l empire ottoman paris centre national de la reserche scientifique inalcik halil turkish jewish relations in the ottoman empire sevilla sharon moshe turkiye yahudileri tarihsel bakis jerusalem the hebrew university source john dewey the new republic vol nov pp happy the minority jews which has had no christian nation to protect it and one recalls that the jews took up their abode in fanatic turkey when they were expelled from europe especially spain by saintly christians and they have lived here for centuries in at least as much tranquility and liberty as their fellow turkish subjects all being exposed alike to the rapacity of their common rulers to one brought up as most americans have been in the gladstonian and foreign missionary tradition the condition of the jews in turkey is almost a mathematical demonstration that religious differences have had an influence in the tragedy of turkey only as they were combined with aspirations for a political separation which every nation in the world would have treated as treasonable one readily reaches the conclusion that the jews in turkey were fortunate he also stated that they armenians traitorously turned turkish cities over to the russian invader that they boasted of having raised an army of one hundred and fifty thousand men to fight a civil war and that they burned at least a hundred turkish villages and exterminated their population turkey and the holocaust an interview with stanford j shaw history who recently completed two books the jews of the ottoman empire and the turkish republic and turkey and the holocaust turkey s role in rescuing turkish and european jewry from nazi persecution shaw chairs the undergraduate interdepartmental degree program in near eastern studies and has organized the program for the study of ottoman and turkish jewry he is affiliated with the g e von grunebaum center for near eastern studies editor how did you come to write these two books on turkey and european and turkish jews shaw basically i m an ottoman historian but i m also jewish i ve spent twenty five years studying ottoman history and as time went along whenever i found materials on the ottoman jews i collected them but i never did anything with them until a couple of years ago when i suddenly realized that was the th anniversary of the jews being expelled from spain and coming to turkey then the sephardic temple down on wilshire avenue invited me to give a series of three lectures on ottoman jewry these lectures were greatly appreciated and i became motivated to undertake further research to develop a book the jews of the ottoman empire and the turkish republic this book is quite different from the works of most jewish historians who tend to look at the jews in any country more from the viewpoint of the jews and the jewish community and rely mainly on jewish sources i view my subject as an ottoman historian and i approach the jews of the ottoman empire largely from the point of view of ottoman society using largely ottoman sources after i finished this book and sent it to the press i came across additional documents relating to turkish jews during world war ii in the completed book i had said that turkey had done a good deal to rescue the jews during world war ii but i did not actually have many details then i found a batch of documents in the foreign ministry archive relating to actions taken by turkish diplomats to help the jews before and during the holocaust it was too late to add this new information to the book in press so i decided to write a second book i conducted further research mainly in the archives of the foreign ministry in ankara and the turkish embassy and consulate in paris the result was the second book turkey and the holocaust which details how turkey helped rescue jews from the nazis how exactly did they do this the story takes place over a number of years the book presents the material in three parts first of which deals with the period before the holocaust when the nazis came to power in germany in they immediately started dismissing jews and anti nazi germans from universities hospitals scientific institutes and the like turkey at that moment was just beginning the process of reforming its universities and it saw in these jews who were being fired from their positions in germany a good source of new talent to help modernize the turkish universities within three months after the nazis started dismissing these jews turkey arranged to take many of them in they were brought to turkey and were given appointments as professors in the turkish universities as heads of scientific institutes and as medical personnel in hospitals about to major jewish professors came to turkey in the s ernst reuter a german political scientist spent the war years teaching political science in turkey after world war ii he was mayor of berlin during the berlin airlift fritz neimark a major german jewish economist came to turkey and helped establish a modern school of economics in istanbul a man named reichenbach who was rescued from the nazis by turkey and spent the war years in turkey eventually came to ucla where he became a professor of philosophy other german jewish emigres engaged in cultural activities in turkey one such was karl ebert who had been a leading theatrical producer in berlin until he was expelled by the nazis he went to turkey where he organized the turkish national theater and the turkish national opera company in ankara with the help of paul hindemuth so the first section of the book covers this first phase when jews were being persecuted in germany and rescued by turkey oddly enough the german emigres when they were in turkey did not seem to think too badly of germany they regarded themselves more as germans than jews and they did not join in the anti nazi activities of the local turkish jewish community i even found letters from the nazi representatives to turkey praising these german jewish refugees for their work in promoting the idea of german culture even though these people had been persecuted by the nazis and rescued by the turks they shared the nazis feelings of aryan racial superiority over the turks the second part of the book deals with the holocaust which began in when the nazis occupied france in europe at that time and especially in france there were about turkish jews they had migrated to europe for various reasons from about the turn of the century onward most of them had settled in europe during the turkish war for independence after world war i when greece was threatening to overrun turkey the greeks had persecuted the jews throughout the nineteenth century and the jews feared what might happen to them if the greeks took over in turkey many jews fled to france during the s and s many also abandoned their turkish citizenship and became french citizens suddenly the nazis invaded france in and started introducing all sorts of anti jewish laws the turkish jews soon found that it was not worth very much to be a french jew but that it was worth a lot to be a turkish jew how so turkey remained neutral through most of world war ii it retained its embassies and consulates in all the nazi occupied countries until it finally entered the war on the side of the allies at the end of during the war therefore turkey was in a position to defend its citizens against anti jewish measures and the actions that turkish diplomats took form the second chapter of the book turkish diplomats who were stationed in france in particular intervened to protect jews of turkish citizenship from the nazis for those turkish jews who had retained their turkish citizenship there was generally no problem if they were arrested and sent to a concentration camp the turkish diplomats would communicate with the commanders of the camp and other officials and say in effect these people are turkish citizens you can t do this to them and the turkish jews would be released if their businesses were confiscated the turkish diplomats would protest and the businesses would be restored the nazis in general wanted to keep the friendship of turkey they hoped to be able to use turkey as a gateway for an invasion of the middle east and they also wanted to obtain chromium and manganese from turkey in order to keep turkish friendship they usually accepted these interventions on behalf of turkish jews the turkish diplomats sometimes went to the concentration camps to secure the release of turkish jews at times they even boarded trains hauling turkish jews to auschwitz for extermination and succeeded in getting them off the train most of the foreign jews were sent to a concentration camp at a place called drancy in paris and that s where most of the intercession by turkish consuls took place the greater problem came with the turkish jews who had abandoned their turkish citizenship and had become french citizens the consuls couldn t declare that these people were turkish citizens because they were not my book includes photographs of jews lining up in front of the turkish consulate either to get passports to return to turkey or to get a restoration of their turkish citizenship this was a bureaucratic matter so processing the application would take some time in the meantime it was a real emergency because the nazis would arrest jews on the streets for almost nothing the nazis would even arrest them if they had radios or telephones in their apartments because radios and telephones were forbidden to jews to take care of these former turkish jews the turkish diplomats invented a document called gayri muntazem vatandash or irregular fellow citizen the document said in effect this person is a former turkish citizen who has applied for the restoration of his turkish citizenship in the meantime we would appreciate it if you would treat him as if he were a turkish citizen the diplomats wrote the document in turkish and put their seals on it since the nazis could not read turkish on the whole they accepted these papers as certificates of citizenship by this means the turkish diplomats were able to rescue many jews who had relinquished their turkish citizenship actually the nazis were of two minds about the turkish defense of jews on the one hand the nazi foreign ministry which wanted to retain the friendship of turkey was in favor of accepting these interventions on the other hand himmler and eichmann wanted all jews exterminated at times himmler and eichmann were able to prevail and some of the turkish jews were sent off to auschwitz before the turkish consuls could do anything do you have statistics on how many turkish jews were rescued there were about turkish jews in europe before world war ii about of whom were living in france most of the information in this section of the book relates to the situation in france i have published the letters that the turkish consuls sent to the nazi officials and the letters that came back in reply generally the nazis said that if the turkish consul would present documents certifying that arrested individuals are turkish citizens and promise to send them out of france the nazis would release them from the concentration camp the turkish consuls also organized special trains to take turkish jews from nazi occupied territory back to turkey these trains ran regularly in and the nazis gave the turkish jews visas so they could pass out of nazi territory but the trains were often held up by the nazi influenced governments of eastern europe croatia serbia and bulgaria because these governments really didn t want the jews to escape as a result of the turkish consuls efforts about to of the turkish jews in france were saved another were sent off to auschwitz where most of them died the remaining either escaped across the border into spain or fled to the area of southern france occupied by the italians who treated jews much better than the nazis did at the end of however italy fell out of the war and that was the end for those jews as well incidentally the turkish diplomats in nazi occupied greece also worked to rescue jews in that country the second part of your book then deals with turkish diplomats acting to rescue jews of turkish citizenship or turkish origin from nazi persecution yes and there is an aside i might add here in their interventions on behalf of turkish jews the turks cited their treaty with germany which stated that turkish citizens in german territory would be treated the same as german citizens in turkey on that basis the turks maintained that the nazis could not discriminate against turkish citizens who are jews the nazis claimed and the vichy government agreed that they were not discriminating because they were treating all jews equally turkey protested saying you are dividing our citizens according to religion but the turkish constitution requires that all citizens be treated equally regardless of religion therefore you cannot single out turkish jews american consuls in paris by contrast accepted the nazi argument and told american jews who were being persecuted by the nazis that they couldn t do anything about it because the american jews were being treated the same as other jews the third part of the book takes place in turkey which was the principal center during the holocaust for activities aimed at the rescue of eastern european jews the kwish agency an organization established by jews in palestine to help resettle jews to palestine set up an office in istanbul in under the leadership of chaim barlas other jewish organizations in palestine especially the kibbutzes also sent representatives to istanbul to set up headquarters these groups first tried to contact jews in eastern europe to find out what was happening today we know about the holocaust but at that time people didn t know what was going on they didn t imagine the nazis could do the things they were doing and so the first step was to get information and the turkish government let them use the turkish mails to send letters to their relatives and friends in eastern europe the jewish organizations found out what was happening when they received replies later on when the nazis began to intercept such letters the jews received assistance also from the vatican nuncio angelo roncali who served as the vatican representative in istanbul from to and later became pope john xxiii as the vatican representative during the war he used the facilities of the catholic church to supplement what the turkish government was doing to assist jewish agencies in contacting jews in eastern europe with the cooperation of the turkish government these agencies then sent hard currency food clothing and even railroad and steamship tickets to jews in czechoslovakia bulgaria romania and hungary they weren t able to help much in poland because by then the nazis had wiped out almost all the polish jews whenever possible the rescue agencies arranged for the jews to get out of eastern europe either by train through the so called orient express route to istanbul or by boat through the black sea to istanbul turkey was not eager for all these refugees to remain within its borders during the war because it was being blockaded and was suffering terrible shortages of food and clothing the government therefore facilitated the movement of the non turkish jewish refugees from turkey to palestine either by the taurus express railroad through the mountains to syria and palestine or by small boats across the eastern mediterranean from southern turkey to palestine these efforts were bitterly opposed not only by the nazis but also by the british who did not want any more jewish immigration to palestine because they feared it would hurt their relations with the arabs the british constantly pressured the turkish government to stop this traffic and send those jews back in a few cases the turkish government yielding to british pressure did send the boats back for example in one incident the steamship struma with some jewish refugees from romania was sent back by the turkish government as a result of the intervention of the british ambassador when that ship was sunk by a soviet submarine all were lost except one person nevertheless all told the turkish government allowed no fewer than eastern european jews to pass through turkish territory and move on to palestine during the second world war the turkish authorities also provided these refugees with facilities and money and gave them permission to send money and food out of the country many of these jews who passed through turkey may still be living in israel yes and their children but let s return for a moment to the first group the turkish jews who came from europe they did not go on to palestine they stayed in turkey it was the non turkish eastern european jews who passed through turkey en route to palestine their story is very interesting and you have rescued it from obscurity many studies have been made of the holocaust but most of them do not focus on the eastern european or middle eastern jews most of the scholarship has centered on the western european jews of whom million were massacred by the nazis my study deals with a much smaller number of people i have tried to round out the picture and i hope my book will persuade other scholars to undertake further investigations in the history of eastern jews when it comes to numbers the german jews were also relatively small in number most of the millions slain were polish jews the rescue of eastern european jews may not seem so significant compared with the total of million who were murdered but it meant a lot to those who were saved about three fourths of the book consists of documents translations of many documents they are included because the story is not well known not only are people in the west unaware of the courageous actions of the turkish diplomats even the people of turkey did not know the story i felt that they would not fully understand this remarkable achievement unless they could see the documents what languages are used in the documents most of them are in turkish or french some are in hebrew there is a great deal of material in hebrew about the organization of the boats going to palestine the passengers and so on but i did not go into those details extensively i describe mostly what turkey did so most of my documents are in turkish or french a few documents are in english the jewish groups in istanbul did not necessarily cooperate with one another to rescue jews in fact they often fought with one another they took turns trying to get the turkish government to deport rival groups for example some of the kibbutz groups felt that the jewish agency was run by western european jews who were interested only in helping western european jews finally in president roosevelt sent a personal representative ira hirschman who had been an executive of bloomingdale s department store in new york city and hirschman managed to reconcile their differences the documents related to his mission are in english i also obtained many documents from serge klarsfeld a holocaust historian in france who mainly worked on the french jews his father was killed by the nazis he gave me materials he had gathered in the german archives on the turkish jews so i didn t personally consult the german archives i believe that much more can be learned from the german archives and i hope someone someday will make the effort this new book fits in well with your teaching doesn t it right i m giving a course on the history of the jews of the ottoman empire i first gave the course two years ago in addition to research writing and teaching i ve been actively involved in the commemoration of the th anniversary of the coming of the jews to the ottoman empire among other things i helped organize a large international conference on the subject which was held in istanbul in now that your books are finished and the conference has taken place what do you plan to do next i m working on two new books one is a history of the turkish war for independence which took place after world war i during the years to the turks warded off the efforts of the victorious european powers to occupy turkey and end its independence the second book is a study of sultan abdul hamid ii the last major sultan who ruled from to he was an important modernizer in his own way although he also suppressed all sorts of political movements stanford j shaw received a b a in history and an m a in british history he then shifted to near eastern history earning a second m a and a ph d at princeton as a doctoral candidate at princeton he spent two years abroad studying at the school of oriental and african studies university of london the university of cairo the american university at cairo and the university of istanbul he taught at harvard before coming to ucla in his postdoctoral research has been supported by the john simon guggenheim foundation the american research institute in turkey the social science research council the national endowment for the humanities the fulbright program and isop he has received honorary degrees from harvard university and bosporus university bebek istanbul turkey and medals of honor for lifetime contributions to the fields of islamic and turkish studies from the center for research in islamic history art and culture in istanbul and from the american friends of turkey in washington d c in addition to undertaking many professional service activities and public lectures in both the united states and turkey shaw has also produced eight books and one edited volume his history of the ottoman empire and modem turkey vols has been published in many editions six editions or reprints from and translated into turkish and french his book the jews of the ottoman empire and the turkish republic macmillan london and new york university press will be published in turkish translation by the turkish historical society istanbul his turkey and the holocaust turkey s role in rescuing turkish and european jewry from nazi persecution will be published by macmillan publishers london and new york university press in a pamphlet summarizing the book was published in ankara turkey in serdar argic we closed the roads and mountain passes that might serve as ways of escape for the turks and then proceeded in the work of extermination ohanus appressian in soviet armenia today there no longer exists a single turkish soul sahak melkonian
