THE OPERATIONS OF TURKIFICATION IN THE 20TH CENTUR

[Soghomon]

THE OPERATIONS OF TURKIFICATION IN THE 20TH CENTURY AND PREPARATORY PHASE OF THE JEWISH HOLOCAUST IN TURKEY

Excerpts from a research by Roupen R. Kouyoumdjian BSc., MSc.

Member of the Armenian National Committee of Canada

REFERENCES:

1) Dr. Ayhan Aktar, Varlik Vergisi ve 'Türklestirme' Politikalari (The Capital Tax and and the politics of turquification), Iletisim Publishers, Istanbul, 2000, page 24.

2) Ibid. pages 19, 41.

3) Ridvan Akar, Askale Yolculari—Varlik Vergisi ve Çalisma Kamplari (Passengers to Askale—Capitial Tax and forced labour camps), Belge Uluslararasi Yayincilik, Istanbul, 1999.

4) Ayhan Aktar, op. cit. pages 71-74, 92-93.

5) Ridvan Akar, op. cit. page 204.

6) Ibid. page 243.

7) Ibid, page 5.

Ibid, page 185.

9) Ibid, page 186-187.

10) Dr Ayhan Aktar, op.cit., pages 24, 243.

Additional Reference:

Faik Ökte, Varlik Vergisi Faciasi, Nebioglu Publishers, Istanbul, 1951. English translation: Faik Ökte, The Tragedy of the Turkish Capital Tax (translated by Geoffrey Cox), Croom Helm Publishers, USA, 1987.

It is with the goal of providing a retrospective summary and exploration that we will review the major historical events in Turkey in the 20th century, their immediate impact and subsequent repercussions.

The 20th century remains engraved as a bloody chapter in the history of humanity. Our planet was the site of two world wars, several regional conflicts, escalation of human rights violations, repetitive ethnic cleansings, profusive pogroms, many recognized and ignored genocides, numerous incidents of ferocity and barbarism, at times frenetic and hysterical, but undoubtedly humiliating and unacceptable, destructive of all universally recognized concepts of human dignity accepted throughout time.

Turkey has been one of the countries where its leaders have used this type of radical bloody method. This is why particular attention must be paid to Turkey, especially if we consider how the Western powers have tolerated and blessed their behavior, allowing it to avoid sanctions it merited, due to the military-economic order and consequently established alliances.

Nevertheless, we have an undeniable obligation as well as a historical responsibility to explore the various scenarios and nightmarish episodes that leave us no room to maneuver in regards to subjective theory considered superfluous in these circumstances.

* * *

At the beginning of the 20th century, Turkey found itself at the crossroads of several ideologies that generated political tendencies comparatively nuanced, but nonetheless all having a totalitarian dimension which called for the exclusion of “others”, undesirables, as an integral part of their agenda.

In this political debate, with intellectual and religious overtones, the philosophy around which they were to form a society or country centered around tendencies construed as Ottomist, pan-islamist, pan-touranist and Turkist. In this context, we will abstain from comparing these various tendencies. Nevertheless all these tendencies converged on a redefinition of the national identity: elimination, assimilation, cleansing of “undesirable elements” was the order of the day.

The operational image already sketched was but a mirror reflection of the ideological obsessions, which needed to be named.

The debates around the table, be it in the political scene or in the hallways, made a judicious and opportune choice. The Turkism or the Turkification was to be the mobilizing symbol of their machinations.

The name given to this regime, as history has shown us, served as a disguise for the extremist operations already designed and established. Even the most skeptical took part because the organizational aspect of Turkism responded to the majority including the extreme radicals.

The first chapter of this operation involved the integral cleansing of Anatolia of non-muslim ethnic minorities. On April 24, 1915, the Armenian people were subjected to the first genocide of the 20th century. The toll of this butchery was over 1.5 million victims.

“Before the first world war, 20% of the population inside the frontiers of Turkey were non-muslims, after the war this percentage was 2.5%”(1)

The second stage of this first chapter concerned the citizens of Greek descent. The expulsion and evacuation of this minority was in progress from 1918. In 1923, the year the treaty of Lausanne was signed, 1.5 million Turkish citizens of Greek origin were expulsed through legislation under the guise of an agreement of reciprocity. Only the Turkish citizens living in Istanbul were saved.(2)

It is easy to see that in the space of 8 years, from 1915 to 1923, a total of 3 million Turkish non-muslim citizens were removed from the map, half through a genocidal act, the rest through expulsion.

The 2nd chapter of this operation was consummated through the adoption of a special law concerning “Capital Taxes”

The application of this law was a sordid operation demonstrating the shabbiness of the government in regards to its minorities.

A special commission mandated by the government would have jurisdiction and decisional power to establish this infamous tax (or surtax) in regards to the goods (property) of the individual. The powers given to the arbitrator led to injustices beyond the call. The outrageous sums had no logical basis in regards to the financial potential of the individual. In this inhuman process, non-muslim ethnic groups were particularly hard hit.

A delay of 2 weeks was given to the victims of this tax to make payments. Confiscations, auction of goods at ridiculous prices were the next steps. For those who could not meet the financial burden of this tax, deportation to a concentration camp in the east of the country (Erzurum-Askale) was called for. In brief, 5 to 6 thousand people were deported, including the old who died because they were unable to survive the harsh conditions. The choice of the date is revealing of the privileged values of the government.(3)

This bludgeoning law (adopted on the 11th of November 1942, No. 4305) which theoretically targeted all goods in the country was another humiliating episode for the “Turkish Republic” with its segragative character and law, leaving no doubt on the real intentions of the government in regards of keeping the advancement of its mandate for the turkification of all its territory. The Armenian genocide of 1915 assured the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians coupled with the expulsion of 1.5 million Greeks; this bludgeoning law constituted another brutal blow to minorities (Jews, Armenians, Greeks) in order to destroy them economically. Certain Turkish authors have referred this tax as being a form of “economic” genocide.

The preferred target of this economically devastating law was the city of Istanbul, where non-muslim minorities were compressed due to the violent measures of successive governments; Armenians escaping the genocide, Istanbul Greeks who avoided the expulsion, and Jews.

It is interesting to note how the Jews, who were dispersed in the 6 cities of Thrace (Northwest region of country), came to be compressed in Istanbul. An analysis of this “economic” genocide, brings to light a new dimension regarding the complicity of the Turkish government in the preparatory phase of the Jewish Holocaust.

At the beginning of the 1930’s, the two countries allied during the first world war (Turkey and Germany) were both governed by regimes which were totalitarian in nature, centralized, with Turkism and Nazism as the fundamental objective. The principal element was the elimination of the undesirable elements, coupled with expansionism. References put at our disposition a series of documents and statistics (from the British and American archives) that prove unequivocally the complicity and the culpability of the Turkish government in the events of 1934, during which tens of thousands of Turkish citizens of Jewish origin were victims of systematic violence, harassment, pillaging, rape, pogroms; they were forced to flee their native cities (Kirklareli, Loleburgaz, Edirne, Babaeski, Uzunkopru, Canakkale, Gelibolu—i.e. Northern Turkey, Thrace Region) abandoning all their property and goods, uprooted and gone as refugees to Istanbul.(4)

The written and oral press let pass under silence these horrifying events of capital importance, the archives are clear of commentary, inaccessible or simply expunged by government order. The bulk of information we have gathered is from the archives of the United States and Great Britain, thanks to the research of Dr. A. Aktar.

A comparative study of the two regimes points out their affinities, their synchronicity and parallels which are striking.

Here are the events which show clearly the complicity of Kemalist Turkey with Nazi Germany.

While on June 30, 1934, Hitler erases his opposition with a bloody purge (the Night of the Long Knives), in Turkey, the anti-Semite movement reaches its culminating point (from March to June 1934). Several cities with substantial amounts of Jewish communities are rocked by violence, organized pogroms with the support of the government. More than 10 000 citizens of Jewish origin are obligated to flee to Istanbul, where all 3 ethnic groups gather unknowingly waiting for the guillotine cut under the guise of the legislation of 1942 (Capital Tax)

What is the principal reason the government used this strategy of regrouping the victims of these successive atrocities in Istanbul?

The response is furnished for us in the contents of a report from the 9th Bureau (responsible for Minority issues) of CHP, the single party dominating Turkish politics (the multi-party system did not begin in Turkey until 1946).

“We will force them using all means possible to leave their home cities. This deportation must be funneled to Istanbul to limit their demographic growth and avoid their spread. It will facilitate our implementation of a global solution and its execution”.(5)

—At the beginning of 1934, precisely on May 10, the distribution of swastikas by student associations at the university level had begun.

—One of the significant dimensions of the operational chronological synchronicity between Turkey and Germany is shown through the presence of German officials in the guise of assistant professors (high school level), accompanied by their colleagues in the Turkish army, whose ultimate purpose was the promotion of nazism.(6)

—A clandestine agreement with Nazi Germany to prevent Jewish immigration to Turkey.

On December 15, 1941, the ship “Struma” with 761 Jewish passengers fleeing the Nazi invasion arrives in Istanbul and asks for authorization to cross the Bosphorus. Anchored in the port, the ship is made to wait until February 24, 1942 when its request is denied. Famine, lack of water and dysentery take their toll on passengers. The ship is forced to turn around and head back. In the Black Sea, the ship is torpedoed by a submarine. The result is 760 victims and 1 survivor, Mr. David Stollar. 24 hours after this tragedy, the Prime Minister of the era, Refik Saydam, makes the following declaration.

“Turkey cannot be the destination of undesirable refugees”

—In 1942, Hitler officially called for the extermination of the Jews of Europe. On November 11 of the same year, S. Saracoglu, the Prime Minister of Turkey, adopts the law of “Capital Tax” to destroy economically the 3 minority groups, namely the Jews, Armenians and Greeks, who were already regrouped in Istanbul.

— The invasion of Poland on the 1st of September 1939 signaled the start of the Second World War. Turkey maintained an artificial neutrality, nonetheless it watched with an attentive eye the progression of the German forces in Russia. The defeat of the Germans at Stalingrad and the surrender of their army on this front (February 2, 1943) squashed the dreams of Turkish diplomacy that was waiting for the proper moment to conquer Armenia and the rest of the Caucuses in an effort to relaunch its expansionist plans.

Since 1930, the regimes of the 2 allies of the First World War were comparable; totalitarian, centered on nationalism and expansionism. The two regimes had the same plan of action, were different in timing, but notably similar in schedule, synchronization and chronology. The masking of the plan, along with the complicity of the media, completed the process of criminal xenophobia until the end of the Second World War. It is in this context that the preliminary phase of the Jewish Holocaust was hatched in Turkey with the complicity of the Turkish Government.

The following illustration provides the opportunity to view the harmonious relationship which existed between the regimes. A comparative analysis is very persuasive and includes the following excerpts.

“They (the Jews) monopolize all the financial transactions and the commerce. Their natural impertinence and their fortunes create jealousies. This antipathy is cultivated by them and incites hatred. This digs an abyss between the head of the household and his guest.” (Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler)

“Against those who profit from the hospitality offered by this country and become wealthy, while at the same time abrogate their responsibilities at this critical moment, the law will be applied with full force”. (Speech by Sukru Suracoglu, Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey, cited in Cumhuriyet Daily, January 21, 1943)(7)

During the sombre period where this special law was applied vigorously, the 9th Bureau of CHP, in charge of minority issues, published an internal report.

It is important to note once again how successive Turkish governments were vigilant in executing their sordid plans in the short and long term. Here is a resume of this famous report with emphasis on its recommendations and schedules.

The section concerning the Armenians.

“Those who still remain in Anatolia must be evacuated at all cost. We must stop their growth and create situations to force them to emigrate to Istanbul. When the time (future) comes, it is necessary to find a global solution for all those concerned (minorities).

According to this report “Armenians are not assimilable and those who survive must be encouraged to depart (emigrate)”.

The section concerning the Greeks.

“The Greeks no longer represent a danger”(especially after the expulsion of 1.5 million Greeks in 1923), but there were those who were forced to move to Istanbul. The recommendation of the report is very clear. “On the 500th anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul by the Ottoman forces, not one Greek should be left in the city.”

The section concerning the Jews.

In the first section of the report, judgments in regards to the “humiliating” history of the Jewish people, citing the fact that for 2000 years this people had neither a country or an ancestral homeland are made. Nomadic, this people is completely devoid of nationalistic pride and honour. The only objective for this people is money and influence.

The second section of the report is concerning its recommendations. “Stop all Jewish immigration, while provoking incidents within the country with the goal of creating a Jewish exodus, keep them away from all government activity, be it financial or economic”.(9)

The recommendations of this report were realized to the letter. Other historic events which occurred after the application of the special law of 1942 (Capital Tax) confirmed the Machiavellian agenda which was adopted.

This loyalty to the operational aspect of the plan had the desired results. Humiliated and intimidated, while searching for a viable and permanent solution to their situation, 40 000 Turkish citizens of Jewish origin fled Istanbul once the state of Israel was established in 1948.

While most Muslim nations refused to recognize the State of Israel, Turkey was the first Muslim nation to do so, following in the footsteps of the United States.

The reasons behind their political strategy are clearly opportunistic. This provides a diplomatic way of “apologizing” to the state of Israel for its treatment of Jewish citizens, and at the same time appease the Western powers for its links and partnership with Nazi Germany. Finally this strategy provided Turkey with the opportunity to enter into NATO, a particularly privileged status, which permitted it to secure preferential credits and at the same time get closer to the Western powers.

The recommendations of the 9th Bureau of the CHP were religiously respected. Thus, for those of the Greek community, the recommendation was as we recall, that at the 500th anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul, no Greek was to be left in the city.

At the beginning of the 1950’s the political relations between Turkey and Greece were excessively strained due to the Cyprus issue. The consequences of this tension were extremely dire for the remaining minorities in Istanbul, notably the Greek community.

The explosion of a bomb in Salonica (Greece), coupled with an assassination attempt at the ancestral home of Mustapha Kemal, the founder of the Turkish Republic and First President, exasperated a hostile environment and led to the events of September 6-7, 1955: pillaging, rapes, destruction of minority property in Istanbul. The late intervention of the army ended the riots. The damage was irreparable. Several years later, the troubling revelations made under the guise of testimony in front of the civil-military courts (the judges were named by the military junta) showed that the bombing was the work of a man of Turkish origin in service to government agencies.

This was the beginning of another period of exodus for all minorities, most particularly the Greeks. The recommendations stipulated in the report of the 9th Bureau were executed to the letter albeit 2 years later than called for (1955 instead of 1953). The official end of the Greek community in Istanbul was consummated in 1964 when the government adopted a special decree forcing the expulsion of Greeks from Istanbul.

In general, the stages of this demographic erosion, caused by premeditated incidents, can be resumed in the following manner:(10)

Year % of non-muslim minorities of the total population

1914 20 %

1918 2.5 %

1935 1.98 %

1945 1.56 %

1955 1.08 %

1980 0.1 %

Nevertheless, the turkification project for the entire country is still not complete. For a pureblooded turkist, the ideal image is a homogenous country where all the remaining Muslim non-turkish minorities such as the Kurds, Lazes, Tcherkesses... etc. are either exterminated or assimilated.

* * *

Inaugurated under the cover of an academic movement, pan-touranism became politicized, even hyper-politicized, during the First World War. It manifested itself in a course of action which was well defined. It also formed alliances waiting for its moment of action.

The horrors of 1915 (the physical extermination of the Armenian people, as well as the liquidation of their geo-political rights) must be reviled as the sinister program of the government of Talaat (the Young Turk government). This program was much more than an “academic and cultural” turkification.

The Young-Turks, half pan-islamists, half pan-touranists, still in the concepts of Ottomanism, limited themselves to cleansing Turkey of Armenians and partially Greeks. Nonetheless, the total Turkification of the country became the ultimate project of successive governments throughout the 20th century. These governments were unrelenting in their march forward, and agonized entire groups. With patience, they executed each stage of the plan. The Germanophile Ittihadistes succeeded through opportunism to turn national patriotism into national racism.

The 20th century may have provided for a period of national renaissance, but it did not signify a spiritual renaissance, or a conversion to principals which were more progressive, with higher humanitarian ideals — like some people naively believed it would be.

We leave to your judgment the evaluation of this renaissance and the naming of this “offspring” of Western “impotence”, which through their role as quiet accomplices assisted in the massacre and annihilation of innocent people.