BAHAR, IZZET I.
(2012)
TURKEY AND THE RESCUE OF JEWS DURING THE NAZI ERA: A REAPPRAISAL OF TWO CASES; GERMAN-JEWISH SCIENTISTS IN TURKEY & TURKISH JEWS IN OCCUPIED FRANCE.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
The study aims to investigate in depth two incidents that have been widely presented in literature as examples of the humanitarian and compassionate Turkish Republic lending her helping hand to Jewish people who had fallen into difficult, even life threatening, conditions under the racist policies of the Nazi German regime. The first incident involved recruiting more than one hundred Jewish scientists and skilled technical personnel from German-controlled Europe for the purpose of reforming outdated academia in Turkey. The second incident is the rescue of Jews of Turkish origin as well as those of non-Turkish origin from France during WWII. Both events were vociferously introduced for the first time in the early 1990s, within the discourse of the Quincentennial Foundation founded to commemorate the five hundreth year of immigration of Jews to the Ottoman Empire following their expulsion from Spain in 1492.
Our study shows that behind the Turkish recruitment of German-Jewish scholars, it was not humanitarian motives, but the interest of the Turkish state was the main and only motivation and the Jewishness of those scientists did not play any role in the decision of their employment.
The study also shows that the Turkish government did not appear to have shown any concrete intention to rescue its Jewish citizens in France who were under the threat of deportations, particularly in the last months of 1942. On the contrary, with mass denaturalization policies, the government was reluctant to take back a sizable portion of its Jewish citizens in France. Only in December 1943, with the obvious defeat of Germany on the horizon and with the realization that only a small number of Jewish citizens would return, did the government give consent to their transportation to Turkey. The sources analyzed also do not confirm an unconventional or special altruistic act of the Turkish diplomats in France in relation to protecting or saving Jewish victims at that time.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
11 June 2012 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
26 March 2012 |
| Approval Date: |
11 June 2012 |
| Submission Date: |
13 April 2012 |
| Access Restriction: |
5 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 5 years. |
| Number of Pages: |
317 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Religious Studies |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Turkish Jews, Holocaust, German-Jewish Scientists Refuged to Turkey in Nazi Era,Turkish Government Approach to the Exiled German-Jewish Scholars,Turkish Jews in France during WWII, Turkish Policies towards Jews in WWII, Desperate Hours, The Turkish Passport, Stanford Shaw, Ambassador Steinhardt, The Quincentennial Foundation, Rescue of Jews in WWII, |
| Related URLs: |
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| Date Deposited: |
11 Jun 2012 19:33 |
| Last Modified: |
11 Jun 2017 05:15 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/11785 |
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