Turkey was neutral -- they weren’t: diplomat-heroes of the Holocaust (2)
by
Mark Lieberman*

When the siege ended, the Christian and Jewish populations -- who had both been enslaved -- were set free, opening the way for the Jewish community to thrive for more than 400 years.

With the 1938 takeover of the island by Italian fascists and the subsequent passage of anti-Jewish laws, more than half of the island’s Jews had departed. By 1943 the number at risk was about 2,000 when Consul General Ülkümen brought his pregnant wife to the island to take up his duties. His test -- and his heroism -- came less than a year later.

According to the website of the Rhodes Jewish Museum, the near total destruction of the ancient community took but two days. “On July 18, 1944, the male Jews of Rhodes age 16 or older were ordered by the Germans to appear the following morning…with their identity cards and work permits. On July 19, the women and children were ordered to appear.” On July 23, 1,673 Jews were marched to the port, where they boarded three crowded boats. On that sad day, a centuries’ old Jewish community ceased to exist. The victims were taken first to a transit camp in mainland Greece -- and thence to Auschwitz where all but 150 were murdered.

But some Rhodesli Jews survived the Holocaust -- thanks to their Turkish citizenship and to the bravery of Consul General Ülkümen, who refused to give up his fellow citizens.

Ülkümen steps in

Ülkümen stepped in upon learning that the imminent deportation-to-death of the island’s Jews included some 50 male Turkish Jews, some of whom had allowed their Turkish citizenship to lapse. Also captured were their spouses -- some of whom were not Jewish. As the death-clock ticked on, Ülkümen confronted the German commanding officer, Gen. von Kleeman, and demanded the release of the Turkish Jews and their spouses. As Professor Stanford J. Shaw recounts it, Ülkümen’s response was brief and direct: “Under Turkish law all citizens were equal,” he said. “We didn’t differentiate between citizens who were Jewish, Christian or Muslim.” Shaw adds that the consul warned the Nazi that unless the Turkish Jews -- and their spouses -- were released, “I would advise my government that if he didn’t release the Jewish Turks it would cause an international incident. Then he agreed.” The Turkish Jews and their spouses were set free.

But the price of Consul General Ülkümen’s bravery was very high, indeed. German planes bombed the Turkish Consulate -- killing Ülkümen’s pregnant wife, Mihrinisa, and two consular officials. Mehmet Ülkümen, the couple’s newborn son, survived. Ülkümen’s mother-in-law committed suicide when she learned of her daughter’s death.

Ülkümen himself was arrested, deported to mainland Greece and imprisoned until the end of the war. His imprisonment coincided with the final annihilation of the Jewish community of mainland Greece, in which virtually the entire population of 40,000 was given up to the Nazis.

Mercifully, Ülkümen survived until the grand age of 89, serving in the diplomatic corps for 34 years, dying in İstanbul in 2003 -- revered.

The efforts of historian Naim Güleryüz, of Turkey’s Quincentennial Jewish Foundation, gathered enough evidence to achieve Ülkümen’s acceptance as one of Yad Vashem’s Righteous Gentiles in 1989. The previous year he had been awarded the “Courage to Care” medal by the American Jewish organization B’nai B’rith. In 2001 he received the Turkish Supreme Service Medal; in the same year Turkey issued postage stamps honoring him and Necdet Kent. The Israeli postal service followed suit by also issuing a commemorative stamp with Ülkümen’s portrait.

Ülkümen’s greatest legacy, of course, is not awards or stamps: It lies in the memory of those he managed to save. Bernard Soriano, one of the Rhodesli Jews who survived thanks to Ülkümen, said, “I am indebted to the Turkish consul who made extraordinary efforts to save my life and those of my fellow countrymen.”

Ülkümen’s son Mehmet, a diplomat like his father, served as chief of protocol at the Turkish Embassy in Washington. In a 2005 interview with the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, he remembered asking his father whether it was worth losing his wife and his mother-in-law -- and almost losing his child -- not to mention having endured years of Nazi imprisonment. Ülkümen answered: “Son, in Islam, it is like in Judaism: to save one life is to save humanity. I know your mother was very proud of me and I would do exactly the same thing again.”

A larger number of diplomat heroes

Diplomats Kent, Behiç Erkin and Ülkümen were not the only diplomat-heroes of those years. Namık Kemal Yolga, vice consul in Paris, personally hid Turkish Jews who were threatened with deportation. For his achievements he received the Supreme Service Medal. Consular officials in Berlin, Budapest, Hamburg and Romania also rescued Turkish Jews.

At home, through the strenuous efforts of Numan Menemencioğlu, foreign minister from 1942 to 1944, and Papal Nuncio Angelo Roncalli -- later Pope John XXIII, almost 100,000 Jews from Eastern Europe passed unharmed through Turkey en route to Palestine, according to Professor Shaw’s research.

Today, approximately 100,000 Turkish Jews live in Israel. Professor Israel Hanukoglu, an eminent biochemist, is one of them. The 58-year-old scientist was born in İstanbul, graduated from an Atatürk Boys’ High School, received a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and in 1970 moved permanently to Israel, where he teaches at Ariel University. From 1996-1999 he was science advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In 2001 Professor Hanukoglu shared his thoughts about Turkish-Jewish relations in an interview with the Turkish Times.

“The Turkish people…harbored the Jewish people through incredibly barbaric times in the annals of European history,” Professor Hanukoglu said. “We owe the Turkish people a great debt of gratitude.”

Reflecting on the status quo in the Middle East at the time -- a status which has certainly not improved over the intervening decade -- Professor Hanukoglu expressed the hope that “the close ties of friendship and tolerance between the Turkish and Jewish people throughout the centuries is proof that Moslems and Jews can live together with mutual respect and should serve as an example for our Arab neighboring countries. … In all the generations of Jewish life in Turkey we never saw a single Moslem Turk trying to kill a Jew in the name of Allah.”