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Herr Cohn
17.05.2002, 21:15
Das Beste ist es, unverhofft einen Menschen zu treffen, der Einem in der Sekunde des einander Ansehens das Gefühl gibt: DAS ist jemand!, den werde ich nie vergessen. Ein Augenblick, in dem alles wichtig wird. Im Gegensatz zu all dem Unwichtigen, mit dem man sich sonst so beschäftigt.

Der Mensch jedenfalls, von dem ich hier schreiben will, war nie an Shows oder Trends beteiligt und hat sich auch nicht um Modisches gekümmert. Er hat Leben gerettet, viele Leben.

Zuerst muss ich ein bisschen ausholen. Vor zehn Jahren arbeitete ich in einem Hamburger Museum, das wechselnde Ausstellungen meist über Zeitgeschichte zeigte. Eines Tages kamen wieder Lastwagen, vollgefüllt mit Dingen, der Ausstellungsraum füllte sich mit Leuten, diesmal Türken, die nicht so recht wussten, wo oder wie jetzt, und das Chaos brach aus, wie gewöhnlich. Wir standen da und überlegten, wohin mit den Sachen, wer schreibt die Texte, wie formuliert man Erklärungen für die Zeitungen und wohin hängen wir dieses große Bild von Atatürk? Die Ausstellung kam nämlich aus der Türkei und da ist es üblich, dass Atatürk in jedem Fall zu sehen sein muss. Nicht so leicht zu hängen, er soll isoliert sein, aber trotzdem nicht ganz allein und so weiter.

Übrigens, es war eine Ausstellung über "Fünfhundert Jahre Juden in der Türkei - The History of the Turkish Jews, 1492 - 1992" mit besonders viel Material über das 20. Jahrhundert.

Wir überlegten, wollen wir die Sachen chronologisch hinhängen oder nach ihrer Wichtigkeit? Und den Atatürk? Am besten fragt man einen von den türkischen Juden, was sie davon halten, wo sind sie denn - und da betrat Herr Oyala den Raum, ein türkisch-jüdischer Geschäftsmann, einer der Begründer der "Quincentennial Foundation", welche diese Ausstellung betrieb. Er war alt, so um die achtzig, wachsam, schnell und lustig, hatte seine Augen überall und trug eine englische graue Tweedjacke. Immer, jeden Tag, den er da war. Herr Oyala sprach gut englisch, aber manchmal wusste er ein Wort nicht, französisch ging es besser. Schön so, denn von unserer Seite sprach das nur ich. Und der Chef kümmerte sich nicht, also blieb es zum Glück an mir hängen. Ich belagerte Herrn Oyala und er erzählte ausgiebig vom Leben seiner Vorfahren in der Türkei seit ihrer Ankunft 1492, von seinen eigenen Erinnerungen, vom zweiten Weltkrieg. Was für ein kluger alter Herr! Wieviel er wusste! Nach einer halben Stunde fragte ich ihn, ob er sich mit seiner Familie eigentlich noch auf Ladino unterhielt, spaniolisch, die Sprache der sefardischen Juden? Er strahlte und sagte "Si! Pero se yama Judezmo!" Dann sprach er in seiner Muttersprache Judezmo weiter und wie wunderbar, ich verstand ihn vollkommen, denn ich hatte in Argentinien als Kind mal Spanisch gelernt und nie ganz vergessen. Sein Spanisch aus dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert war viel, viel schöner als das in Argentinien gesprochene oder das zischende Kastilisch aus dem Radio.

So hörte es sich an: "Vemos las bueltas ke tiene la vida.
La vida es triste, munças vezes las persones no tienen piadad. Malorozamente, las kozas, la cente kayen en elolvido. Ma las ovras nunka se mueren. A la fin i al kavo ke es esta vida? Unos rekuerdos alegres otros tristes i algunas ovras.
Yo, en mi viaje a Alamanya estuve pensando todo esto. Me desi yevar por la istorya de mis antepasados, sus alegrias, sus tristezas, sus ideales."

So bauten wir die Ausstellung auf, mit Wechselreden von Herrn Oyalas zivilisiertem Altspanisch und meinem schlechten Argentinisch, und dann war Eröffnung. Das Gelände war voller Menschen, der Ausstellungsraum überfüllt, und da, in der Tür war Bewegung, die Leute machten Platz und ich sah einen kleinen Herrn in blauem Anzug -

- aber zunächst muss ich etwas über ihn schreiben und über das, was er getan hat, und weshalb all die Leute ihn so sehr erwarteten. Selahattin Ülkümen (beides betont auf der dritten Silbe), der türkische Oskar Schindler, wurde 1990 als erster Muslim in der Jerusalemer Gedenkstätte Yad Vashem (http://www.yad-vashem.org.il/righteous/index_righteous.html) mit dem Titel eines Gerechten der Völker ("Righteous Gentile", "Chassid Umot ha'Olam") geehrt. Dort pflanzte er einen kleinen Baum.

Als die Deutschen im Juli 1944 begannen, alle Juden auf der von ihnen besetzten griechischen Insel Rhodos nach Auschwitz zu deportieren, war Herr Ülkümen dort türkischer Generalkonsul. Auf sich allein gestellt schaffte er es, ungefähr 50 Juden zu retten, nur 13 davon waren türkische Staatsangehörige. Weitere Juden, am Ende 42 Familien und insgesamt mehr als 200 Menschen, rettete er mit Hilfe anderer Türken.

Einer der Fälle: Albert Franko war schon in den Zug von Piräus nach Auschwitz gepfercht, da ließ Herr Ülkümen ihn herausholen, weil er in letzter Minute erfahren hatte, dass Frankos Frau einen türkischen Pass besaß. Es war ein gefährliches Vabanquespiel, wie Ülkümen genau wusste, und er gewann es.

Es war zur Zeit, als die Deutschen in Auschwitz rund 400 000 Menschen in vier Monaten ermordeten, manchmal bis zu 12 000 Menschen am Tag. Eine Überlebende aus Rhodos, Matilda Toriel, berichtet, dass sie türkische Staatsangehörige war, mit einem Italiener verheiratet und auf Rhodos lebend. Am 18. Juli 1944 wurden allen Juden befohlen, am nächsten Morgen im dortigen Gestapo-Hauptquartier zu erscheinen. Herr Ülkümen wusste genau, was ihnen drohte. Als Frau Toriel gerade durch die Tür gehen wollte, sprach er sie an und hinderte sie, das Gebäude zu betreten - sie hatte den Mann nie zuvor gesehen. Er riet ihr, hier zu warten, denn er wolle versuchen, ihren Ehemann da herauszuholen. Dieser erzählte ihr später, dass Herr Ülkümen dort drinnen verlangte, dass die Deutschen alle türkischen Staatsangehörigen sowie deren Angehörigen gehen lassen sollten, insgesamt 15 Familien. Außerdem forderte er die Freilassung weiterer 25 bis 30 Menschen, von denen er behauptete, sie seien Türken, deren Staatsangehörigkeit erloschen sei. Der Gestapo traute ihm nicht und verlangte, die Papiere zu sehen, welche die Leute eben nicht hatten. Nichts zu machen. Doch kurz darauf kam Herr Ülkümen wieder hinein ins Gestapo-Hauptquartier und bestand darauf, dass nach türkischem Gesetz die Ehegatten von Türken selbst Türken seien - und so bekam er sie frei! Frau Toriel entdeckte später, dass solch ein Gesetz nicht existierte und Herr Ülkümen es einfach erfunden hatte. Jedoch alle anderen, rund 1700 Menschen, wurden nach Auschwitz deportiert.

Als die Deutschen herausbekamen, was Herr Ülkümen getan hatte, ließen sie als Vergeltung sein Haus bombardieren. Seine schwangere Frau kam darin um. Dann sperrten sie ihn ein.

Andere Diplomaten, die so todesmutig waren wie er, retteten zwischen 1938 und 1945 über 200 000 Menschen.

___________________________________________________________________
http://www.etemenanki.de/corpus_delicti/Uelkuemen.JPG


Wo war ich stehengeblieben? ... Ja, ich sah einen kleinen alten Herrn in blauem Anzug, agil, gebräunt, der da hinten durch die Tür kam, die Leute machten Platz, das Stimmengewirr wurde schlagartig leiser. Das war Selahattin Ülkümen. Er sah Bekannte und verschwand sofort in einer Menschengruppe am Rand, da waren ausgebreitete Arme und Rufe. Ich blickte kurz auf den Boden vor mir; das war also ein Gerechter, ich hatte dort hinten einen Gerechten gesehen.

Später führte ich ein paar Leute an den Bildern entlang, die an den Stellflächen hingen, es ging um den Sultan Bayazid II, der als Einziger im Jahr 1492 die aus Spanien grausam vertriebenen Juden (die Sefarden) aufgenommen hat, so viele er eben sicher über's Meer bekam. Einen Moment lang stand ich allein da und guckte mir den Turban des Sultans an. Da bemerkte ich neben mir einen kleinen Herrn in blauem Anzug - und mir klopfte sofort das Herz, es war Herr Ülkümen, der da friedlich die Bilder und Gegenstände betrachtete. Es war zu spät, um mich leise zurückzuziehen, und ich sagte "Sir, it's such a great honour for me -". Herr Ülkümen drehte sich zu mir, lächelte aus ernsten dunklen Augen und sagte "But it's an honour for me...!" Dann gab mir der Gerechte die Hand, ging langsam weiter und ich stand da vom Donner gerührt mit zusammengeschnürter Kehle.

Später, während seiner kurzen Einweihungsrede, habe ich Herrn Ülkümen sagen hören: "I didn't know the Rhodes Jews. I had no dealings with them. I had no special ties with the Jews. I only had humanitarian feelings to every human being."

Angelika Maisch
17.05.2002, 22:15
ich tät dann mal rasch springen und diese Geschichte blau machen, wenn sie nix einzuwänden fänden, Herr Cohn.
Obwohl ich das spanische nicht verstehe.
Sonst aber mit Spannung gelesen habe.

sapinho
17.05.2002, 23:04
A la fin i al kavo ke es esta vida? Unos rekuerdos alegres otros tristes i algunas ovras.

Wunderschön!

Die Wucht
18.05.2002, 08:46
Grosse Begegnung, zurecht gebläut! Durch Ihre Erzählung erfahre ich erstmals von Selahattin Ülkümen. Herr Cohn, wie geht man mit ihm, seinem Verdienst, seiner Vergangenheit in der Türkei um? Erinnert man sich an ihn, wird er geehrt, wissen - außer einer Minderheit - Menschen in der Türkei, was er gemacht hat?

sys
18.05.2002, 10:59
hab´s gern gelesen, herr cohn, schliesse mich der wucht an.
bitte dennoch um nachträgliche korrektur des spanischen, der vollständigkeit halber, ihnen als pingel müsste das nämlich eigentlich sehr weh tun.

Ignaz Wrobel
18.05.2002, 11:21
Bei Menschen mit über 50% amtlich beglaubigtem Heiligenstatus überkommen mich immer Fluchtinstinkte, Walser hin oder her. Aber schön beschrieben und es ist bestimmt ein ganz feiner Mann.

Aporie
18.05.2002, 11:52
Judezmo schreibt sich tatsächlich so,sys: k für q und c, b für v,z für s und ein unerklärliches n vor einigen Konsonanten (ansí, aínda, muncho) wohingegen bei "estonces" das n durch ein s ersetzt ist.

Schöne Geschichte, Herr Cohn.

sys
18.05.2002, 11:59
@ aporie: danke für den hinweis. beim zweiten lesen erschliesst es sich.
@ herr cohn: bitte für alle mal übersetzen.

Aporie
18.05.2002, 12:55
"Vemos las bueltas ke tiene la vida. La vida es triste, munças vezes las persones no tienen piadad. Malorozamente, las kozas, la cente kayen en el olvido. Ma las ovras nunka se mueren. A la fin i al kavo ke es esta vida? Unos rekuerdos alegres otros tristes i algunas ovras.

Yo, en mi viaje a Alamanya estuve pensando todo esto. Me desi yevar por la istorya de mis antepasados, sus alegrias, sus tristezas, sus ideales."



Freie Übersetzung:

"Wir wissen um die Wechselschläge des Lebens. Das Leben ist traurig, und oft haben die Menschen kein Mitleid. Leider geraten viele Ereignisse und die mit ihnen verbundenen Menschen in Vergessenheit. Was bleibt, sind einige froh und einige eher traurig stimmende Erinnerungen und natürlich einige Werke.

An all dies habe ich auf meiner Reise nach Deutschland gedacht. Es drängte mich etwas davon aufzuheben für die Geschichte meiner Vorfahren, etwas festzuhalten von ihren Freuden, ihrer Traurigkeit, ihren Idealen."

DerCaptain
18.05.2002, 13:24
Ich bin beeindruckt. Zurecht gebläut.
Oh, mein Gott. Mein 4000. Posting. Ich widme es Herrn Cohn.

D. John
18.05.2002, 13:53
Wunderbar erzählt. Danke, Herr Cohn!

Herr Cohn
18.05.2002, 14:42
Vielen Dank, Ihnen allen. Oh, Captain - gratuliere!

Wucht, in der Türkei kennt man Herrn Ülkümen gut. Er gilt da weniger als 'Retter der Juden', eher als Retter von Menschen! In Israel fühlt er sich zu Hause. Und als Heiligen wollte ich ihn gar nicht so schildern, Herr Wrobel. Er stand da im Raum als ein sehr freundlicher alter Herr. Er ist halt ein Gerechter -

In der Türkei heißt es nicht, wir haben die Juden gerettet. Obwohl es so war. Juden sind da nichts Auffälliges, eben Nachbarn seit 500 Jahren, für die man etwas tut, wenn sie in Not sind. Erst vorige Woche war ich in einem dieser türkischen Elektronikläden in meiner Gegend, es lief eine der billigen dort verkauften Musikkassetten, 'Türkisches', dann 'Jüdisches', einfach so, es war nichts Besonderes. Keiner achtet so darauf, es gehört dazu. Sehr angenehm für Alle, das. Es hat immer gut funktioniert.

Aporie, danke für Ihre schöne Übersetzung!

Ignaz Wrobel ist jetzt wirklich wieder hier - sehr gut, das.

Doctor Subtilis
18.05.2002, 15:33
Mit Gewinn gelesen, Herr Cohn!

Hat das "unerklärliche n" im Judezmo nicht vielleicht etwas mit Nasalierung zu tun? Das Portugiesische kennt ja auch die Nasale, wobei Übereinstimmung mit den von Aporie genannten Beispielen nur teilweise vorhanden ist.

bangen
19.05.2002, 00:57
HENRY I MORGENTHAU,
American Ambassador at Constantinople from 1913 to 1916

TO

WOODROW WILSON
THE EXPONENT IN AMERICA OF THE ENLIGHTENED PUBLIC OPINION OF THE WORLD, WHICH HAS DECREED THAT THE RIGHTS OF SMALL NATIONS SHALL BE RESPECTED AND THAT SUCH CRIMES AS ARE DESCRIBED IN THIS BOOK SHALL NEVER AGAIN DARKEN THE PAGES OF HISTORY

bangen
19.05.2002, 00:58
The destruction of the Armenian race in 1915 involved certain difficulties that had not impeded the operations of the Turks in the massacres of 1895 and other years. In these earlier periods the Armenian men had possessed little power or means of resistance. In those days Armenians had not been permitted to have military training, to serve in the Turkish army, or to possess arms. As I have already said, these discriminations were withdrawn when the revolutionists obtained the upper hand in 1908. Not only were the Christians now permitted to bear arms, but the authorities, in the full flush of their enthusiasm for freedom and equality, encouraged them to do so. In the early part of 1915, therefore, every Turkish city contained thousands of Armenians who had been trained as soldiers and who were supplied with rifles, pistols, and other weapons of defense. The operations at Van once more disclosed that these men could use their weapons to good advantage. It was thus apparent that an Armenian massacre this time would generally assume more the character of warfare than those wholesale butcheries of defenseless men and women which the Turks had always found so congenial. If this plan of murdering a race were to succeed, two preliminary steps would therefore have to be taken: it would be necessary to render all Armenian soldiers powerless and to deprive of their arms the Armenians in every city and town. Before Armenia could be slaughtered, Armenia must be made defenseless.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:00
In the early part of 1915, the Armenian soldiers in the Turkish army were reduced to a new status. Up to that time most of them had been combatants, but now they were all stripped of their arms and transformed into workmen. Instead of serving their country as artillerymen and cavalrymen, these former soldiers now discovered that they had been transformed into road labourers and pack animals. Army supplies of all kinds were loaded on their backs, and, stumbling under the burdens and driven by the whips and bayonets of the Turks, they were forced to drag their weary bodies into the mountains of the Caucasus. Sometimes they would have to plough their way, burdened in this fashion, almost waist high through snow. They had to spend practically all their time in the open, sleeping on the bare ground---whenever the ceaseless prodding of their taskmasters gave them an occasional opportunity to sleep. They were given only scraps of food; if they fell sick they were left where they had dropped, their Turkish oppressors perhaps stopping long enough to rob them of all their possessions---even of their clothes. If any stragglers succeeded in reaching their destinations, they were not infrequently massacred. In many instances Armenian soldiers were disposed of in even more summary fashion, for it now became almost the general practice to shoot them in cold blood. In almost all cases the procedure was the same. Here and there squads of 50 or 100 men would be taken, bound together in groups of four, and then marched out to a secluded spot a short distance from the village. Suddenly the sound of rifle shots would fill the air, and the Turkish soldiers who had acted as the escort would sullenly return to camp. Those sent to bury the bodies would find them almost invariably stark naked, for, as usual, the Turks had stolen all their clothes. In cases that came to my attention, the murderers had added a refinement to their victims' sufferings by compelling them to dig their graves before being shot.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:01
Let me relate a single episode which is contained in one of the reports of our consuls and which now forms part of the records of the American State Department. Early in July, 2,000 Armenian "amélés"---such is the Turkish word for soldiers who have been reduced to workmen---were sent from Harpoot to build roads. The Armenians in that town understood what this meant and pleaded with the Governor for mercy. But this official insisted that the men were not to be harmed, and he even called upon the German missionary, Mr. Ehemann, to quiet the panic, giving that gentleman his word of honour that the ex-soldiers would be protected. Mr. Ehemann believed the Governor and assuaged the popular fear. Yet practically every man of these 2,000 was massacred, and his body thrown into a cave. A few escaped, and it was from these that news of the massacre reached the world. A few days afterward another 2,000 soldiers were sent to Diarbekir. The only purpose of sending these men out in the open country was that they might be massacred. In order that they might have no strength to resist or to escape by flight, these poor creatures were systematically starved. Government agents went ahead on the road, notifying the Kurds that the caravan was approaching and ordering them to do their congenial duty. Not only did the Kurdish tribesmen pour down from the mountains upon this starved and weakened regiment, but the Kurdish women came with butcher's knives in order that they might gain that merit in Allah's eyes that comes from killing a Christian. These massacres were not isolated happenings; I could detail many more episodes just as horrible as the one related above; throughout the Turkish Empire a systematic attempt was made to kill all able-bodied men, not only for the purpose of removing all males who might propagate a new generation of Armenians, but for the purpose of rendering the weaker part of the population an easy prey.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:04
Dreadful as were these massacres of unarmed soldiers, they were mercy and justice themselves when compared with the treatment which was now visited upon those Armenians who were suspected of concealing arms. Naturally the Christians became alarmed when placards were posted in the villages and cities ordering everybody to bring their arms to headquarters. Although this order applied to all citizens, the Armenians well understood what the result would be, should they be left defenseless while their Moslem neighbours were permitted to retain their arms. In many cases, however, the persecuted people patiently obeyed the command; and then the Turkish officials almost joyfully seized their rifles as evidence that a "revolution" was being planned and threw their victims into prison on a charge of treason. Thousands failed to deliver arms simply because they had none to deliver, while an even greater number tenaciously refused to give them up, not because they were plotting an uprising, but because they proposed to defend their own lives and their women's honour against the outrages which they knew were being planned. The punishment inflicted upon these recalcitrants forms one of the most hideous chapters of modern history. Most of us believe that torture has long ceased to be an administrative and judicial measure, yet I do not believe that the darkest ages ever presented scenes more horrible than those which now took place all over Turkey. Nothing was sacred to the Turkish gendarmes; under the plea of searching for hidden arms, they ransacked churches, treated the altars and sacred utensils with the utmost indignity, and even held mock ceremonies in imitation of the Christian sacraments. They would beat the priests into insensibility, under the pretense that they were the centres of sedition. When they could discover no weapons in the churches, they would sometimes arm the bishops and priests with guns, pistols, and swords, then try them before courts-martial for possessing weapons against the law, and march them in this condition through the streets, merely to arouse the fanatical wrath of the mobs. The gendarmes treated women with the same cruelty and indecency as the men. There are cases on record in which women accused of concealing weapons were stripped naked and whipped with branches freshly cut from trees, and these beatings were even inflicted on women who were with child. Violations so commonly accompanied these searches that Armenian women and girls, on the approach of the gendarmes, would flee to the woods, the hills, or to mountain eaves.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:05
As a preliminary to the searches everywhere, the strong men of the villages and towns were arrested and taken to prison. Their tormentors here would exercise the most diabolical ingenuity in their attempt to make their victims declare themselves to be "revolutionists" and to tell the hiding places of their arms. A common practice was to place the prisoner in a room, with two Turks stationed at each end and each side. The examination would then begin with the bastinado. This is a form of torture not uncommon in the Orient; it consists of beating the soles of the feet with a thin rod. At first the pain is not marked; but as the process goes slowly on, it develops into the most terrible agony, the feet swell and burst, and not infrequently, after being submitted to this treatment, they have to be amputated. The gendarmes would bastinado their Armenian victim until he fainted; they would then revive him by sprinkling water on his face and begin again. If this did not succeed in bringing their victim to terms, they had numerous other methods of persuasion. They would pull out his eyebrows and beard almost hair by hair; they would extract his finger nails and toe nails; they would apply red-hot irons to his breast, tear off his flesh with red-hot pincers, and then pour boiled butter into the wounds. In some cases the gendarmes would nail hands and feet to pieces of wood---evidently in imitation of the Crucifixion, and then, while the sufferer writhed in his agony, they would cry: " Now let your Christ come and help you!

These cruelties---and many others which I forbear to describe---were usually inflicted in the night time. Turks would be stationed around the prisons, beating drums and blowing whistles, so that the screams of the sufferers would not reach the villagers.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:07
In thousands of cases the Armenians endured these agonies and refused to surrender their arms simply because they had none to surrender. However, they could not persuade their tormentors that this was the case. It therefore became customary, when news was received that the searchers were approaching, for Armenians to purchase arms from their Turkish neighbours so that they might be able to give them up and escape these frightful punishments.

One day I was discussing these proceedings with a responsible Turkish official, who was describing the tortures inflicted. He made no secret of the fact that the Government had instigated them, and, like an Turks of the official classes, he enthusiastically approved this treatment of the detested race. This official told me that all these details were matters of nightly discussion at the headquarters of the Union and Progress Committee. Each new method of inflicting pain was hailed as a splendid discovery, and the regular attendants were constantly ransacking their brains in the effort to devise some new torment. He told me that they even delved into the records of the Spanish Inquisition and other historic institutions of torture and adopted all the suggestions found there. He did not tell me who carried off the prize in this gruesome competition, but common reputation throughout Armenia gave a preeminent infamy to Djevdet Bey, the Vali of Van, whose activities in that section I have already described. All through this country Djevdet was generally known as the "horseshoer of Bashkale" for this connoisseur in torture had invented what was perhaps the masterpiece of all---that of nailing horseshoes to the feet of his Armenian victims.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:08
Yet these happenings did not constitute what the newspapers of the time commonly referred to as the Armenian atrocities; they were merely the preparatory steps in the destruction of the race. The Young Turks displayed greater ingenuity than their predecessor, Abdul Hamid. The injunction of the deposed Sultan was merely "to kill, kill", whereas the Turkish democracy hit upon an entirely new plan. Instead of massacring outright the Armenian race, they now decided to deport it. In the south and southeastern section of the Ottoman Empire lie the Syrian desert and the Mesopotamian valley. Though part of this area was once the scene of a flourishing civilization, for the last five centuries it has suffered the blight that becomes the lot of any country that is subjected to Turkish rule; and it is now a dreary, desolate waste, without cities and towns or life of any kind, populated only by a few wild and fanatical Bedouin tribes. Only the most industrious labour, expended through many years, could transform this desert into the abiding place of any considerable population. The Central Government now announced its intention of gathering the two million or more Armenians living in the several sections of the empire and transporting them to this desolate and inhospitable region. Had they undertaken such a deportation in good faith it would have represented the height of cruelty and injustice. As a matter of fact, the Turks never had the slightest idea of reestablishing the Armenians in this new country. They knew that the great majority would never reach their destination and that those who did would either die of thirst and starvation, or be murdered by the wild Mohammedan desert tribes. The real purpose of the deportation was robbery and destruction; it really represented a new method of massacre. When the Turkish authorities gave the orders for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal the fact.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:10
All through the spring and summer of 1915 the deportations took place. Of the larger cities, Constantinople, Smyrna, and Aleppo were spared; practically all other places where a single Armenian family lived now became the scenes of these unspeakable tragedies. Scarcely a single Armenian, whatever his education or wealth, or whatever the social class to which he belonged, was exempted from the order. In some villages placards were posted ordering the whole Armenian population to present itself in a public place at an appointed time-usually a day or two ahead, and in other places the town crier would go through the streets delivering the order vocally. In still others not the slightest warning was given. The gendarmes would appear before an Armenian. house and order all the inmates to follow them. They would take women engaged in their domestic tasks without giving them the chance to change their clothes. The police fell upon them just as the eruption of Vesuvius fell upon Pompeii; women were taken from the washtubs, children were snatched out of bed, the bread was left half baked in the oven, the family meal was abandoned partly eaten, the children were taken from the schoolroom, leaving their books open at the daily task, and the men were forced to abandon their ploughs in the fields and their cattle on the mountain side. Even women who had just given birth to children would be forced to leave their beds and join the panic-stricken throng, their sleeping babies in their arms. Such things as they hurriedly snatched up---a shawl, a blanket, perhaps a few scraps of food---were all that they could take of their household belongings. To their frantic questions " Where are we going? " the gendarmes would vouchsafe only one reply: "To the interior."

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:11
In some cases the refugees were given a few hours, in exceptional instances a few days, to dispose of their property and household effects. But the proceeding, of course, amounted simply to robbery. They could sell only to Turks, and since both buyers and sellers knew that they had only a day or two to market the accumulations of a lifetime, the prices obtained represented a small fraction of their value. Sewing machines would bring one or two dollars---a cow would go for a dollar, a houseful of furniture would be sold for a pittance. In many cases Armenians were prohibited from selling or Turks from buying even at these ridiculous prices; under pretense that the Government intended to sell their effects to pay the creditors whom they would inevitably leave behind, their household furniture would be placed in stores or heaped up in public places, where it was usually pillaged by Turkish men and women. The government officials would also inform the Armenians that, since their deportation was only temporary, the intention being to bring them back after the war was over, they would not be permitted to sell their houses. Scarcely had the former possessors left the village, when Mohammedan mohadjirs---immigrants from other parts of Turkey---would be moved into the Armenian quarters. Similarly all their valuables---money, rings, watches, and jewellery---would be taken to the police stations for "safe keeping, pending their return, and then parcelled out among the Turks. Yet these robberies gave the refugees little anguish, for far more terrible and agonizing scenes were taking place under their eyes. The systematic extermination of the men continued; such males as the persecutions which I have already described had left were now violently dealt with. Before the caravans were started, it became the regular practice to separate the young men from the families, tie them together in groups of four, lead them to the outskirts, and shoot them. Public hangings without trial---the only offense being that the victims were Armenians---were taking place constantly. The gendarmes showed a particular desire to annihilate the educated and the influential. From American consuls and missionaries I was constantly receiving reports of such executions, and many of the events which they described will never fade from my memory. At Angora all Armenian men from fifteen to seventy were arrested, bound together in groups of four, and sent on the road in the direction of Caesarea. When they had travelled five or six hours and had reached a secluded valley, a mob of Turkish peasants fell upon them with clubs, hammers, axes, scythes, spades, and saws. Such instruments not only caused more agonizing deaths than guns and pistols, but, as the Turks themselves boasted, they were more economical, since they did not involve the waste of powder and shell. In this way they exterminated the whole male population of Angora, including all its men of wealth and breeding, and their bodies, horribly mutilated, were left in the valley, where they were devoured by wild beasts. After completing this destruction, the peasants and gendarmes gathered in the local tavern, comparing notes and boasting of the number of "'giaours" that each had slain. In Trebizond the men were placed in boats and sent out on the Black Sea; gendarmes would follow them in boats, shoot them down, and throw their bodies into the water.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:13
When the signal was given for the caravans to move, therefore, they almost invariably consisted of women, children, and old men. Any one who could possibly have protected them from the fate that awaited them had been destroyed. Not infrequently the prefect of the city, as the mass started on its way, would wish them a derisive "pleasant journey." Before the caravan moved the women were sometimes offered the alternative of becoming Mohammedans. Even though they accepted the new faith, which few of them did, their earthly troubles did not end. The converts were compelled to surrender their children to a so-called "Moslem Orphanage," with the agreement that they should be trained as devout followers of the Prophet, They themselves must then show the sincerity of their conversion by abandoning their Christian husbands and marrying Moslems. If no good Mohammedan offered himself as a husband, then the new convert was deported, however strongly she might protest her devotion to Islam.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:14
At first the Government showed some inclination to protect these departing throngs. The officers usually divided them into convoys, in some cases numbering several hundred, in others several thousand. The civil authorities occasionally furnished ox-carts which carried such household furniture as the exiles had succeeded in scrambling together. A guard of gendarmerie accompanied each convoy, ostensibly to guide and protect it. Women, scantily clad, carrying babies in their arms or on their backs, marched side by side with old men hobbling along with canes. Children would run along, evidently regarding the procedure, in the early stages, as some new lark. A more prosperous member would perhaps have a horse or a donkey, occasionally a farmer had rescued a cow or a sheep, which would trudge along at his side, and the usual assortment of family pets---dogs, cats, and birds---became parts of the variegated procession. From thousands of Armenian cities and villages these despairing caravans now set forth; they filled all the roads leading southward; everywhere, as they moved on, they raised a huge dust, and abandoned débris, chairs, blankets, bedclothes, household utensils, and other impedimenta, marked the course of the processions. When the caravans first started, the individuals bore some resemblance to human beings; in a few hours, however, the dust of the road plastered their faces and clothes, the mud caked their lower members, and the slowly advancing mobs, frequently bent with fatigue and crazed by the brutality of their "protectors," resembled some new .and strange animal species. Yet for the better part of six months, from April to October, 1915, practically all the highways in Asia Minor were crowded with these unearthly bands of exiles. They could be seen winding in and out of every valley and climbing up the sides of nearly every mountain---moving on and on, they scarcely knew whither, except that every road led to death. Village after village and town after town was evacuated of its Armenian population, under the distressing circumstances already detailed. In these six months, as far as can be ascertained, about 1,200,000 people started on this journey to the Syrian desert.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:15
"Pray for us," they would say as they left their homes---the homes in which their ancestors had lived for 2,500 years. "We shall not see you in this world again, but sometime we shall meet. Pray for us!"

The Armenians had hardly left their native villages when the persecutions began. The roads over which they travelled were little more than donkey paths; and what had started a few hours before as an orderly procession soon became a dishevelled and scrambling mob. Women were separated from their children and husbands from their wives. The old people soon lost contact with their families and became exhausted and footsore. The Turkish drivers of the ox-carts, after extorting the last coin from their charges, would suddenly dump them and their belongings into the road, turn around, and return to the village for other victims. Thus in a short time practically everybody, young and old, was compelled to travel on foot. The gendarmes whom the Government had sent, supposedly to protect the exiles, in a very few hours became their tormentors. They followed their charges with fixed bayonets, prodding any one who showed any tendency to slacken the pace. Those who attempted to stop for rest, or who fell exhausted on the road, were compelled, with the utmost brutality, to rejoin the moving throng. They even prodded pregnant women with bayonets; if one,. as frequently happened, gave birth along the road, she was immediately forced to get up and rejoin the marchers. The whole course of the journey became a perpetual struggle with the Moslem inhabitants. Detachments of gendarmes would go ahead, notifying the Kurdish tribes that their victims were approaching, and Turkish peasants were also informed that their long-waited opportunity had arrived. The Government even opened the prisons and set free the convicts, on the understanding that they should behave like good Moslems to the approaching Armenians. Thus every caravan had a continuous battle for existence with several classes of enemies---their accompanying gendarmes, the Turkish peasants and villagers, the Kurdish tribes and bands of Chétés or brigands. And we must always keep in mind that the men who might have defended these wayfarers had nearly all been killed or forced into the army as workmen, and that the exiles themselves had been systematically deprived of all weapons before the journey began.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:16
When the victims had travelled a few hours from their starting place, the Kurds would sweep down from their mountain homes. Rushing up to the young girls, they would lift their veils and carry the pretty ones off to the hills. They would steal such children as pleased their fancy and mercilessly rob all the rest of the throng. If the exiles had started with any money or food, their assailants would appropriate it, thus leaving them a hopeless prey to starvation. They would steal their clothing, and sometimes even leave both men and women in a state of complete nudity. All the time that they were committing these depradations the Kurds would freely massacre, and the screams of women and old men would add to the general horror. Such as escaped these attacks in the open would find new terrors awaiting them in the Moslem villages. Here the Turkish roughs would fall upon the women, leaving them sometimes dead from their experiences or sometimes ravingly insane. After spending a night in a hideous encampment of this kind, the exiles, or such as had survived, would start again the next morning. The ferocity of the gendarmes apparently increased as the journey lengthened, for they seemed almost to resent the fact that part of their charges continued to live. Frequently any one who dropped on the road was bayoneted on the spot. The Armenians began to die by hundreds from hunger and thirst. Even when they came to rivers, the gendarmes, merely to torment them, would sometimes not let them drink. The hot sun of the desert burned their scantily clothed bodies, and their bare feet, treading the hot sand of the desert, became so sore that thousands fell and died or were killed where they lay. Thus, in a few days, what had been a procession of normal human beings became a stumbling horde of dust-covered skeletons, ravenously looking for scraps of food, eating any offal that came their way, crazed by the hideous sights that filled every hour of their existence, sick with all the diseases that accompany such hardships and privations, but still prodded on and on by the whips and clubs and bayonets of their executioners.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:17
And thus, as the exiles moved, they left behind them another caravan---that of dead and unburied bodies, of old men and of women dying in the last stages of typhus, dysentery, and cholera, of little children lying on their backs and setting up their last piteous wails for food and water. There were women who held up their babies to strangers, begging them to take them and save them from their tormentors, and failing this, they would throw them into wells or leave them behind bushes., that at least they might die undisturbed. Behind was left a small army of girls who had been sold as slaves---frequently for a medjidie, or about eighty cents---and who, after serving the brutal purposes of their purchasers, were forced to lead lives of prostitution. A string of encampments, filled by the sick and the dying, mingled with the unburied or half-buried bodies of the dead, marked the course of the advancing throngs. Flocks of vultures followed them in the air, and ravenous dogs, fighting one another for the bodies of the dead, constantly pursued them. The most terrible scenes took place at the rivers, especially the Euphrates. Sometimes, when crossing this stream, the gendarmes would push the women into the water, shooting all who attempted to save themselves by swimming. Frequently the women themselves would save their honour by jumping into the river, their children in their arms.

"In the last week in June," I quote from a consular report, "several parties of Erzeroum Armenians were deported on successive days and most of them massacred on the way, either by shooting or drowning. One, Madame Zarouhi, an elderly lady of means, who was thrown into the Euphrates, saved herself by clinging to a boulder in the river. She succeeded in approaching the bank and returned to Erzeroum. to hide herself in a Turkish friend's house. She told Prince Argoutinsky, the representative of the 'All-Russian Urban Union' in Erzeroum, that she shuddered to recall how hundreds of children were bayoneted by the Turks and thrown into the Euphrates, and how men and women were stripped naked, tied together in hundreds, shot, and then hurled into the river. In a loop of the river near Erzinghan, she said, the thousands of dead bodies created such a barrage that the Euphrates changed its course for about a hundred yards."

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:18
It is absurd for the Turkish Government to assert that it ever seriously intended to "deport the Armenians to new homes"; the treatment which was given the convoys clearly shows that extermination was the real purpose of Enver and Talaat. How many exiled to the south under these revolting conditions ever reached their destinations? The experiences of a single caravan show how completely this plan of deportation developed into one of annihilation. The details in question were furnished me directly by the American Consul at Aleppo, and are now on file in the State Department at Washington. On the first of June a convoy of three thousand Armenians, mostly women, girls, and children, left Harpoot. Following the usual custom the Government provided them an escort of seventy gendarmes, under the command of a Turkish leader, a Bey. In accordance with the common experience these gendarmes proved to be not their protectors, but their tormentors and their executioners. Hardly had they got well started on the road when Bey took 400 liras from the caravan, on the plea that he was keeping it safely until their arrival at Malatia; no sooner had he robbed them of the only thing that might have provided them with food than he ran away, leaving them all to the tender mercies of the gendarmes.

All the way to Ras-ul-Ain, the first station on the Bagdad line, the existence of these wretched travellers was one prolonged horror. The gendarmes went ahead, informing the half-savage tribes of the mountains that several thousand Armenian women and girls were approaching. The Arabs and Kurds began to carry off the girls, the mountaineers fell upon them repeatedly, violating and killing the women, and the gendarmes themselves joined in the orgy. One by one the few men who accompanied the convoy were killed. The women had succeeded in secreting money from their persecutors, keeping it in their mouths and hair; with this they would buy horses, only to have them repeatedly stolen by the Kurdish tribesmen. Finally the gendarmes, having robbed and beaten and violated and killed their charges for thirteen days, abandoned them altogether. Two days afterward the Kurds went through the party and rounded up all the males who still remained alive. They found about 150, their ages varying from 15 to 90 years, and these, they promptly took away and butchered to the last man. But that same day another convoy from Sivas joined---this one from Harpoot, increasing the numbers of the whole caravan to 18,000 people.

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:20
Another Kurdish Bey now took command, and to him, as to all men placed in the same position, the opportunity was regarded merely as one for pillage, outrage, and murder. This chieftain summoned all his followers from the mountains and invited them to work their complete will upon this great mass of Armenians. Day after day and night after night the prettiest girls were carried away; sometimes they returned in a pitiable condition that told the full story of their sufferings. Any stragglers, those who were so old and infirm and sick that they could not keep up with the marchers, were promptly killed. Whenever they reached a Turkish village all the local vagabonds were permitted to prey upon the Armenian girls. When the diminishing band reached the Euphrates they saw the bodies of 200 men floating upon the surface. By this time they had all been so repeatedly robbed that they had practically nothing left except a few ragged clothes, and even these the Kurds now took; and the larger part of the convoy marched for five days almost completely naked under the scorching desert sun. For another five days they did not have a morsel of bread or a drop of water. "Hundreds fell dead on the way," the report reads, "their tongues were turned to charcoal., and when, at the end of five days, they reached a fountain, the whole convoy naturally rushed toward it. But here the policemen barred the way and forebade them to take a single drop of water. Their purpose was to sell it at from one to three liras a cup and sometimes they actually withheld the water after getting the money. At another place, where there were wells, some women threw themselves into them, as there was no rope or pail to draw up the water. These women were drowned and, in spite of that, the rest of the people drank from that well, the dead bodies still remaining there and polluting the water. Sometimes, when the wells were shallow and the women could go down into them and come out again, the other people would rush to lick or suck their wet, dirty clothes, in the effort to quench their thirst. When they passed an Arab village in their naked condition the Arabs pitied them and gave them old pieces of cloth to cover themselves with. Some of the exiles who still had money bought some clothes; but some still remained who travelled thus naked all the way to the city of Aleppo. The poor women could hardly walk for shame; they all walked bent double.

On the seventieth day a few creatures reached Aleppo. Out of the combined convoy of 18,000 souls just 150 women and children reached their destination. A few of the rest, the most attractive, were still living as captives of the Kurds and Turks; all the rest were dead.

D. John
19.05.2002, 01:22
Musste das jetzt sein?

bangen
19.05.2002, 01:28
Ja

Herr Cohn
19.05.2002, 01:31
Großergott, Bangen. Ein Link hätte es auch getan.

Das ist Stoff für einen eigenen Strang -

bangen
19.05.2002, 02:55
Einen kleinen Link fand ich dem Thema nicht angemessen.


Ich denke es ist nicht möglich eine Ausstellung über 500 Jahre gutes türkisch - jüdisches Zusammenleben zu machen ohne den Völkermord an den Armeniern zu berücksichtigen.

Wie haben Sie das damals gelöst?

Herr Cohn
19.05.2002, 03:00
Gar nicht. Man kann nicht alles miteinander vermischen. Dabei käme nichts Klares heraus.

Das wäre so, als wenn man sagte, die Engländer haben 'uns' mit von den Nazis befreit, aber vierzig Jahre zuvor haben sie Hässliches mit den Buren getan. Oder, die Holländer sind jetzt sehr aufgeklärt, aber 1950 in den Molukken -

bangen
19.05.2002, 20:28
Diese Antwort war ziemlich schwach.

Die Parallelen zwischen dem Völkermord an den Armeniern und dem an den Juden sind so eindeutig. Nur eben kaum bekannt.
Die von Herrn Wrobel geäusserte Skepsis ist sicher berechtigt.

Beklemmend finde ich auch, dass Henry Morgenthau Senior den Massenmord an den Armeniern hilflos miterleben musste und zwanzig Jahre später sein Sohn Henry Morgenthau Junior in fast der gleichen Situatuion war.

Ich bin zweimal 1978 und 1979 durch das Gebiet zwischen der türkischen Grenze und Aleppo gefahren. Irgendwie hatte ich mal über Armenien gelesen, aber was genau in dieser Gegend geschehen war wusste ich nicht. Ich kann mich nur erinnern, dass dort eine dunkle Totenstimmung über dem Land lag. Ab Aleppo in Richtung Damaskus wurde es dann wieder freundlicher.

Genaueres über die Vernichtung der Armenier las ich erst nachdem ich über ICQ (Internet) eine Frau in Eriwan, Armenien kennenlernte. Digital konnte ich dann einiges über diese Verbrechen lernen.

Was Geschichtswissenschaftler und Museumspaedagogen nicht zustandebringen wird nun durch Computernerds möglich.

Das damals bei der Vorbereitung Ihrer Ausstellung der Massenmord an den Armeniern besprochen wurde glaube ich einfach nicht.

Stimmen
19.05.2002, 20:33
In der Tat, vor dir hatte noch kein Mensch vom Völkermord an den Armeniern gehört. Trotzdem: Was ist mit den Indianern? Wurde ihr Genozid bereits genug gewürdigt oder soll ich hier nochmal 1800 MB reinstellen?

bangen
19.05.2002, 20:45
Mal was davon gehört haben reicht nicht.

Bitte schreibe jetzt nicht deine Karl May Sammlung ab.

Der unbequeme Mahnbaer
19.05.2002, 20:49
Wer von Völkermord spricht, darf von Karl May nicht schweigen! Meine Meinung.

lilsista
19.05.2002, 21:14
Bangen, bevor Sie weiter explodieren lesen Sie doch mal diese (http://home.t-online.de/home/koelner.appell/HE.html) Rede und sagen Sie mir ob sie gut ist. Dann lese ich sie vielleicht.

(Von ihren Beiträgen konnte ich nur 'WOODROW WILSON' lesen, dann wurde ich vom sich abrollenden Text erschlagen.)

Dreizehn Koestlichkeiten
19.05.2002, 21:54
Durch ein paar kleine Änderungen im eigenen Profil kann man diesen Strang hier auf das wesentliche reduzieren. Er ist dann nur noch halb so lang.

bangen
19.05.2002, 22:04
Ein guter Vortrag vom 13. Januar 2002. Aber eben sehr spät.

Hier findet man den Originalbericht, 1918 als Buch veröffentlicht

http://www.cilicia.com/morgenthau/MorgenTC.htm

Das zu lesen hat bei mir für mindestens 2 Wochen Fassungslosigkeit gereicht.

Ich würde gerne wissen ob das auch in deutscher Sprache gedruckt wurde.

Herr Cohn
20.05.2002, 03:13
Dass Sie den Völkermord an den Armeniern brandmarken und Ihnen die Sache nahegeht, finde ich ehrenwert, Bangen - ich verstehe nur nicht, welchen Zusammenhang das mit dem traditionellen Verhältnis der Türken zu ihren jüdischen Nachbarn haben soll. Da gibt es überhaupt keinen. Sie erwähnen Parallelen zwischen dem Einen und dem Anderen - und dann schweigen Sie sich aus. Welche 'Parallelen' sollten das denn sein (außerhalb deren von furchtbarem menschlichem Leid)? Und weshalb sollten die Ereignisse von 1915 auch nur irgendwie die Gewichtung des Themas der oben beschriebenen Ausstellung beeinflusst haben? Außerhalb von persönlichen Assoziationen, die man so für sich hegen mag?

bangen
20.05.2002, 04:33
Deir-es-Zor, das Todeslager in der Wüste, hat für Armenier den gleichen schrecklichen Klang wie Auschwitz für die Juden. "Es gibt viele Parallelen zwischen dem Völkermord an den Juden und dem an Armeniern. Beide wurden während eines Krieges ermordet. Auch die Jungtürken hatten ein völkisches Rasse-Konzept der Nation und träumten von Turan, einem Groß-Reich von Thrakien bis Mittelasien", erklärt Dr. Mihran Dabag, Direktor des Bochumer Instituts, mit dessen Gründung Deutschland 1994 an die internationale vergleichende Genozidforschung anschloß.

Auch hier wieder, erst 1994 wird begonnen Völkermord umfassend darzustellen.

Ich bin mir sicher, dass heute eine Ausstellung wie Sie sie damals gezeigt haben anders angegangen würde. Aber das macht ja nichts, Hauptsache man lernt dazu.

Beim Lesen Ihrer Geschichte musste ich eben sofort an die Verbrechen gegen das armenische Volk denken und konnte dieses "schöne Geschichte, toll, wie wird Ladino geschrieben?" einfach nicht aushalten.

DREA
20.05.2002, 06:38
Bangen, habe mich durchgekaempft, und aus dem Wust sicher auch was gelernt. Waere aber bestimmt auch Links gefolgt.

Zwei Danke an Cohn, 1x fuer die Schliessung einer Wissenluecke, 1x fuer das Lesevergnuegen ab Absatz 5.

Finsterling
21.05.2002, 12:58
Herr Cohn: Sehr interessant. Gerade, weil es nicht den gängigen Klischees entspricht.

Bangen: Haben Sie nicht eine etwas verengte Sichtweise, wenn Sie Völker darauf reduzieren, welche Leichen sie im Keller haben? Da hat nämlich jede Nation irgendwas in ihrer Vergangenheit, auf das sie nicht stolz sein dürfte. Wir am ehesten. Nach Ihrer Logik dürfte man Schindler oder andere Retter gar nicht erst erwähnen, weil ihre Aktionen vor dem Hintergrund des Holocaust verblassen.
Oder paßt es einfach nicht ins Schema, daß ein Türke ein anständiger Mensch sein kann?

slowtiger
21.05.2002, 14:54
Schon wieder einer, der nur in Sets denkt. Ts. "Nur wer sich gleichzeitig auch über X, Y und Z aufregt, darf überhaupt von ABC sprechen" - in diese Richtung läuft das doch. Und das ist einfach falsch, aber sowas von.

Man schmeißt nicht einen Türken mit allen anderen Türken in einen Topf. Die versalzene Suppe rette ich nicht durch Zugabe von Zucker, umgekehrt füge ich einem gelungenen Gericht doch nicht die gleiche Menge verdorbener Vorräte zu, nur damit es am Ende bestenfalls pampig schmeckt! Nein, ich genieße, was gelungen ist, und ich werfe weg, was verdorben ist.

D. John
21.05.2002, 19:57
Ich muss den beiden zustimmen, bangen scheint offenbar gern die negativen seiten einer Sache herauszukehren:


...konnte dieses "Schöne geschichte, toll, wie wird Ladino geschrieben?" nicht mehr aushalten.

Es kann sein, daß ich mal wieder nichts begriffen habe, aber bei diesem Satz mußte ich mich schon sehr beherrschen, vor allem angesichts der Textmengen, die bangen hier hineingestopft hat. Das klingt fast, als hätte bangen seinen Spass daran, anderen das Lesevergnügen zu trüben!

Herr Cohn
23.06.2002, 20:49
Na ja, D. John, es war ihm halt ein Anliegen. - Aber zurück zum Thema, zumal jetzt etwas Zeit vergangen ist: Ein Email mit folgendem Text habe ich vorgestern aus London bekommen. Schön! Es gibt also noch immer Ausstellungen über Türken und Juden, in deren Mitte Herr Ülkümen steht.



Visas For Life exhibition: Turkey and the Jews

TURKEY AND RESCUE: Film, exhibition and discussion

SUNDAY 23RD JUNE, 5.30PM AT THE LJCC

The Visas For Life Exhibition celebrates the bravery of Selahattin Ülkümen, Turkish Consul in Rhodes 1944, who saved 42 Jewish families from deportation with tragic consequences for himself and his family. In fact, there were many more Turkish diplomats whose stories are just beginning to be told, who also helped save thousands of Jewish lives. With an introduction by the Turkish Ambassador, and discussion with Osman Streater, nephew of Numan Menemencioglu , Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs 1942-44 and the Turkish Ambassador. Screening of Desperate Hours - a documentary by Victoria Barrett, produced by Michael Berenbaum, telling the little known story of Turkish rescue during the Holocaust. Tickets cost £8 and can be bought from the LJCC office, tel 020 7431 0345 or email admin@ljcc.org.uk

LJCC
London Jewish Cultural Centre
c/o King's College London
Kidderpore Avenue
London NW3 7SZ
T: 020 7431 0345
F: 020 7431 0361

Herr Schmachtenberg
05.07.2003, 13:27
Selahattin Ülkümen ist vor Kurzem verstorben.

http://www.judentum.net/geschichte/uelkuemen.htm