[Weekly Standard] Zeyno Baran and Onur Sazak - It is tragic that Turkey, a country that had been the savior of so many Jews - first during the Spanish Inquisition and later during World War II - has been transformed into one whose Jewish minority lives in fear. In 2007 Emir Kivircik published The Ambassador, a biography of his grandfather, Behic Erkin, the courageous Turkish ambassador to France who saved 20,000 Jews in France from the Holocaust. When World War II erupted, 10,000 Jews in France were Turkish citizens, and another 10,000 had previously been Turkish citizens. Erkin managed to get Turkish citizenship for the latter 10,000 Jews and then convinced both the French and Nazi governments to allow them all to return to Turkey. Zeyno Baran is a senior fellow and the director of the Center for Eurasian Policy at the Hudson Institute. Onur Sazak is a research associate at the center.
2009-02-13 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive