Behiç Erkin - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Behiç Erkin was a career Army officer; first director (1920–1926) of the Turkish State Railways

Turkish State Railways

The State Railways of the Turkish Republic or TCDD is the government owned, national railway carrier in the Republic of Turkey, headquartered in Ankara...

, nationalized under his auspices; and statesman with the Turkish government who helped save almost 20,000 of ethnic Turkish Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

in France during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

. He was Minister of Public Works, 1926–1928, and deputy for three terms; and an ambassador. He served as Turkey's ambassador to Budapest

Budapest

Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...

between 1928–1939, and to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

and Vichy

Vichy

Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...

between August 1939-August 1943. As Turkish ambassador in France under the German Occupation after June 1940, Erkin used the power of his office and nation's neutrality

Neutrality (international relations)

A neutral power in a particular war is a sovereign state which declares itself to be neutral towards the belligerents. A non-belligerent state does not need to be neutral. The rights and duties of a neutral power are defined in Sections 5 and 13 of the Hague Convention of 1907...

to save Turkish Jews who could document a Turkish connection, however slight, from the Holocaust

The Holocaust

The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...

.

Other Turkish diplomats in France and elsewhere, were also active in this rescue effort. The consulate staff under Necdet Kent

Necdet Kent

İsmail Necdet Kent was a Turkish diplomat who risked his life to save Jews during World War II. While vice consul-general in Marseilles, France between 1941 and 1944, he gave Turkish citizenship to dozens of Turkish Jews living in France who did not have proper identity papers, to save them from...

in Marseille

Marseille

Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...

was particularly involved.

Career

Starting in the early 1910s, Erkin was a close friend and early collaborator of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey....

. Mustafa Kemal and Colonel Behiç Bey (Erkin) played crucial roles in the success of the battles at the Dardanelles front, where both men commanded during World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Erkin earned a high reputation and the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

Iron Cross

The Iron Cross is a cross symbol typically in black with a white or silver outline that originated after 1219 when the Kingdom of Jerusalem granted the Teutonic Order the right to combine the Teutonic Black Cross placed above a silver Cross of Jerusalem....

1st Class military decoration

Military decoration

A military decoration is a decoration given to military personnel or units for heroism in battle or distinguished service. They are designed to be worn on military uniform....

, which served him when he needed to impress Germans during the Occupation. He also played a foremost part in the Turkish War of Independence

Turkish War of Independence

The Turkish War of Independence was a war of independence waged by Turkish nationalists against the Allies, after the country was partitioned by the Allies following the Ottoman Empire's defeat in World War I...

. He took the family name "Erkin" after Turkey's 1934 Law on Family Names

Atatürk's Reforms

Atatürk's Reforms were a series of political, legal, cultural, social and economic reforms that were designed to modernize the new Republic of Turkey into a democratic and secular nation-state...

was passed. His surname "Erkin" means a person, who can take decision objectively without being impressed by an outside influence in any circumstances. He was one of 37 assigned personally by Atatürk.

In 1939 then President

President of Turkey

The President of Turkey is the head of state of the Republic of Turkey. The presidency is largely a ceremonial office but has some important functions...

İsmet İnönü

Ismet Inönü

Mustafa İsmet İnönü was a Turkish Army General, Prime Minister and the second President of Turkey. In 1938, the Republican People's Party gave him the title of "Milli Şef" .-Family and early life:...

hand-picked Erkin for the post of ambassador to France. Erkin's standing with the national government was critical to his mission of being able to save people from being dispatched to concentration camps in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

. His decision to maintain the consulate in Paris even after the Occupation enabled his staff to keep closer watch and rescue Turkish Jews in the Paris area. In 1942-1943, Erkin personally arranged the evacuation across Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

to Turkey by rail of thousands of Turkish-associated Jews.

Mission in France

Background

According to a census French authorities conducted under German Army direction in autumn 1940, 3,381 of a total of 113,467 Jews over age 15, residing in Paris and holding French nationality, were of Turkish origin. The total number of ethnic Turkish Jews were estimated at five thousand people if those under 15 were counted. Scholars have estimated possibly ten thousand Jews of Turkish origin for the whole of France at the time. Turkey's Code

Code (law)

A code is a type of legislation that purports to exhaustively cover a complete system of laws or a particular area of law as it existed at the time the code was enacted, by a process of codification. Though the process and motivations for codification are similar in common law and civil law...

allowed for double nationality, but people had to update their registry at the consulate every five years to preserve a Turkish identity. Many former Turkish nationals in France had neglected this, as most had lived there for decades. Ties to their parents' country were often reduced to anecdotal

Anecdote

An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...

level. Scholars estimate that approximately ten thousand Jews who solely held the Turkish nationality may have resided in France at the time.

Erkin's tenure

Erkin arrived at the Turkish Embassy in Paris only three weeks before the start of the Second World War. While the embassy was small, its staff represented Turkey's administrative and cultural elite, all graduates of Galatasaray High School. They continued as leaders of Turkey in the postwar decades. Two among the staff, Fatin Rüştü Zorlu

Fatin Rüstü Zorlu

Fatin Rüştü Zorlu was a Turkish diplomat and politician. He was executed by hanging after the coup d'état in 1960 along with two other politicians.-Biography:...

and Melih Esenbel, were later to become foreign ministers of Turkey. (Zorlu was executed after the 1960 coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...

. A third colleague, Beşir Balcıoğlu, was assassinated in Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

in 1978.) Namık Kemal Yolga

Namik Kemal Yolga

Namık Kemal Yolga was a Turkish diplomat and statesman, known as the Turkish Schindler. During World War II, Yolga was the Vice-Consul at the Turkish Embassy in Paris, France...

, also known for rescuing Turkish Jews in Paris, became part of the embassy when he was appointed Vice Consul

Vice Consul

A vice consul is a subordinate officer, authorized to exercise consular functions in some particular part of a district controlled by a consulate....

starting April 1940.

After the long phase of the Phony War

Phony War

The Phoney War was a phase early in World War II – in the months following Britain and France's declaration of war on Germany in September 1939 and preceding the Battle of France in May 1940 – that was marked by a lack of major military operations by the Western Allies against the German Reich...

(Drôle de guerre) and the occupation of southern France by the German Army, the consulate located in Marseille and headed by Necdet Kent

Necdet Kent

was moved to Grenoble

Grenoble

Grenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère...

, Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, which was a neutral

Neutrality (international relations)

nation. The coordination work was carried out by Leon Mandil, a Turkish Jew appointed a decade before by Atatürk as "special attaché

Attaché

Attaché is a French term in diplomacy referring to a person who is assigned to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency...

". He had a perfect command of the French language and culture. His family had been prominent in Turkey since the 19th century. >

On 9 June 1940 Sunday, the French government moved in such haste to Vichy that it failed to notify all the embassies in Paris of the change of capital. It took one month for the Turks to move their embassy, with 20 staff members or spouses, but Erkin retained five men in Paris to run the consulate. Once in Vichy, Erkin had frequent contacts with virtually all Vichy officials, including Maréchal Philippe Pétain

Philippe Pétain

Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain , generally known as Philippe Pétain or Marshal Pétain , was a French general who reached the distinction of Marshal of France, and was later Chief of State of Vichy France , from 1940 to 1944...

, Pierre Laval

Pierre Laval

Pierre Laval was a French politician. He was four times President of the council of ministers of the Third Republic, twice consecutively. Following France's Armistice with Germany in 1940, he served twice in the Vichy Regime as head of government, signing orders permitting the deportation of...

, Paul Baudoin

Paul Baudoin

Paul Baudouin was a French banker who became a politician.-Early years:Paul Baudouin was born into a wealthy family in Paris, and served as an artillery officer during The Great War in the French Army. In 1930 he became the Deputy Director and General Manager of the Bank of Indo-China...

, François Charles-Roux, Charles Rochat

Charles Rochat

Charles Rochat was a Swiss Olympic fencer. He competed in the team foil event at the 1924 Summer Olympics.-References:...

and members of embassies of other countries, including the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Following France's surrender to Germany, William D. Leahy

William D. Leahy

Fleet Admiral William Daniel Leahy was an American naval officer, building his reputation through administration and staff work. As Chief of Naval Operations he was the senior officer in Navy, overseeing the preparations for war. After retiring from the Navy he was appointed by his close friend...

represented the US as ambassador in Vichy only from December 1940 to May 1942.

In the early days, the Turkish embassy tried to protect ethnic Turkish Jews by encouraging them to post notices of Turkish nationality next to the "Jewish-owned enterprise" sign required by the Germans. The embassy tried to work with the Germans to protect their nationals. A letter of 28 February 1941 from the German embassy, signed Otto Abetz

Otto Abetz

Dr. Heinrich Otto Abetz was the German ambassador to Vichy France during World War II.-Early years:Abetz was born in Schwetzingen on May 26, 1903. He was the son of an estate manager, who died when Otto was only 13...

, stated that they would be "disposed to evaluate specific cases concerning Turkish nationals" as communicated by the consulate. But when Xavier Vallat

Xavier Vallat

Xavier Vallat , French politician, was Commissioner-General for Jewish Questions in the wartime Vichy collaborationist government, and was sentenced after World War II to ten years in prison for his part in the persecution of French Jews.- Until World War II :Vallat was born in the department of...

was appointed Head Commissioner for Jewish Affairs, he gave new impetus to Vichy France's anti-Jewish actions.

Through 1941-1942, measures against Jews in France became increasingly more severe. The Nazis gathered and deported the most recent Jewish immigrants, then those who had come to France after 1933, and then collected French Jews proper, those who had lived in France for generations. Vallat's office was concerned primarily with confiscating Jewish assets; he directed a wide-scale inventory to be drawn in June–July 1941.

Throughout 1942, Erkin assigned nominal trustees to protect enterprises owned by Turkish Jews. Near the end of the year, the Germans developed a scheme to transport all Jewish nationals of neutral countries to their respective home countries. Accordingly, on 19 September 1942, Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

directed that Turkish Jews could be evacuated until 31 January 1943, a date later extended for two months and more. A few days before the communication, Erkin had secretly met with Germany's Consul General in Vichy Krug von Nidda, Otto Abetz, Heinz Röthke and Rudolf Schleier. He was ready to arrange the first train for Turkish evacuees, which departed from Paris in November 1942 to arrive in Edirne

Edirne

Edirne is a city in Eastern Thrace, the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria. Edirne served as the capital city of the Ottoman Empire from 1365 to 1453, before Constantinople became the empire's new capital. At present, Edirne is the capital of the Edirne...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

eleven days later. It was decorated with a crescent and star. The enterprise was tense with danger, as the consulate was worried about potential attacks on the masses of Jews who gathered at the consulate. Erkin and his staff were able to transport thousands of ethnic Turkish Jews to safety.

Aged 67 in 1943 and having had his ambassadorial term extended three times, Erkin retired in August 1943 to return to İstanbul

Istanbul

Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...

. In 1958 he completed his memoirs (as yet unpublished).

Behiç Erkin died on November 11, 1961. At his wish, he was buried in a courtyard near a railway junction in the Eskişehir

Eskisehir

Eskişehir is a city in northwestern Turkey and the capital of the Eskişehir Province. According to the 2009 census, the population of the city is 631,905. The city is located on the banks of the Porsuk River, 792 m above sea level, where it overlooks the fertile Phrygian Valley. In the nearby...

train station, where he had started his career four decades before.

Biographical accounts

Erkin completed a 900-page memoir in 1958. It has yet to be published but his grandson used the memoir as the basis for his own research about his grandfather's life. Erkin's memoirs dealt with his efforts to aid the Turkish Jews' in France, as their lives were increasingly at risk.

In 2007 Emir Kıvırcık, Erkin's grandson, published The Ambassador, an account of Erkin's tenure in France. The book was rich in details on conditions that prevailed in Vichy France. Kıvırcık related many individual stories while telling of his grandfather's efforts in the context of the Occupation. For example, he told of Robert Lazare Rousso, picked up by the Nazis in a random identity check in Paris on 13 December 1941 and dispatched to a camp. Under the number 3233, he was held with thousands of others for two months, before gaining release on 6 February 1942 due to pressure that Erkin's consulate brought with the Germans. As of 2007, Monsieur Rousso was still living in Paris. As another example, Herman Rothenberg and Isak Bitran were arrested in October 1942 and sent to Drancy internment camp

Drancy internment camp

The Drancy internment camp of Paris, France, was used to hold Jews who were later deported to the extermination camps. 65,000 Jews were deported from Drancy, of whom 63,000 were murdered including 6,000 children...

. After the Turkish consulate corresponded for months with the SS about them, pleading for the release of neutral nationals, both were released on 12 March 1943. Three days later with their families, they boarded an evacuation train the embassy had arranged for emigration to Turkey.

In 2007 American actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

and director

Film director

A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

George Clooney

George Timothy Clooney is an American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. For his work as an actor, he has received two Golden Globe Awards and an Academy Award...

was considering a role as Erkin in a film project related to the ambassador's World War II years.

In The Road to the Front (Cepheye Giden Yol) (2008), Kıvırcık covered his grandfather Erkin's World War I

World War I

years.

Yad Vashem application

In April 2007, an Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i association of Jews with origins in Turkey applied to have Erkin included among the "Righteous Among the Nations

Righteous Among the Nations

Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....

" in Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....

Holocaust Memorial. The applicants, principally Israelis with origins in Turkey, are seeking witnesses to help document their application.