• 1 General Inspector of a particular geographic zone. A sort of extraordinary governor.

Rıfat Bali: I think the 1934 Thrace events (which, in summary, were an attempt to quietly move the Jews, who held many dominant positions in the economy of the various cities of Thrace) cannot only be fitted in the context of social or demographic engineering. There are many reasons behind the events that were connected to each other. The first ‘problem’ (as seen by locals and officials) was not that there were demographically too many Jews living in Thrace; there were not. The problem was mainly and probably a matter of economy: they were concentrated in the upper economic classes of the main cities in Thrace. This is obvious from the report of İbrahim Tali, the general inspector of Thrace (Trakya Umumi Müfettişi1), who, just before the events, made a grand tour in Thrace that lasted 33 days. In his report that he prepared and submitted to the Ministry of Interior, he wrote: ’We do have a Jewish problem in Thrace.’

• 2 Mother tongue of the Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 and settled in Ottoman lands. It is (...)
• 3 Montreux Agreement: Agreement signed on July 20, 1936 between Turkey and France, Great Britain, Bul (...)

R.B.: Mainly and first, from Tali’s point of view, the Jews had the economic upper hand; they were seen as causing problems for the Muslims because of lending money to the locals with high interest rates and dominating the local economy; and, secondly, they had not Turkified themselves; they were still speaking Ladino2, and acting as a distinct community rather than interacting with the Muslim population. Also, the tentative conclusion I came to at the end of the book is that, along with these two reasons (for the Events) there was another one, which so far has not been dealt extensively: namely, the militarization of the Thrace region. In 1934 the Joint Staff wanted to re-militarize the Dardanelles and the whole Thrace region. This was a re-militarization that, as we all know, ended up successfully with the Montreux agreement (1936). 3 From their point of view, Jews and the Bulgarians who were still living in Thrace were potential fifth columns (as İbrahim Tali states). So, they had to be moved from this region without making too much trouble. All these reasons – economics, being seen as potential fifth agents, and finally, to a lesser degree, not being sufficiently ‘Turkified’ – converged. And it suited all parties to force the Jewish communities to leave. It suited the Joint Staff requirements to move these people, and it suited the local Muslim population and the Republican elites who were angry and upset at the Jews for, as they saw it, having the upper hand in economic matters. From their perspective it was the right thing to do if this ‘project’ could be achieved without causing too much trouble. But as we have seen, the plan went out of control and at that point the government was obliged to interfere and take charge.

• 4 Elza Niego was a young Jewish girl who was murdered by a certain Osman Bey, who fell in love with h (...)
• 5 Varlık Vergisi is a Wealth Tax that was approved by the Turkish Parliament in November 11, 1942. It (...)
• 6 Cevat Rıfat Atılhan (1892-1967) was an anti-semitic writer who in 1933-2,34 published İnkılap (late (...)
• 7 Nihat Atsız (1905-1975) was a nationalist writer and owner of Atsız and Orhun journals, which promo (...)

R. B.: Well, the events came as a great shock to the Jewish community in Turkey. I think they also came as a shock to the Turkish intellectuals and Republican elites. I think those in charge wanted the Jews to be moved out of the region without any fuss. But it came as great shock because it was a physical attack, a physical attack on people, on their houses, on their wealth, and so on. So it reminded them, as we all know, of 1933 and the Nazis in Germany. Seven years before, in 1927, they had had another problem, but not of this magnitude. It happened in Istanbul with the murder of a young girl named Elza Niego. This prompted a mass demonstration by the Jews against the Turks during the funeral. And the Turkish elites, in order to teach the Jews a lesson, claimed that the slogans used during the demonstration were an attack on Turkishness, so 10 Jews of Istanbul were prosecuted, but after 30 days they were all released. 4 That was the first shock. Then came 1934, although it cannot really be cannot be compared to this murder. First of all, it did not fit the Jewish community’s conception of what the Turks, at their worst, would do to them. They were never expecting such a thing. Second, it did not fit with what we call Turkification or, whatever it is, the ‘homogenization of the non-Muslims,’ because you cannot Turkify people by force and by doing this kind of quasi-pogrom. I think this event has to be analyzed separately from the other ones in its own context, and explained with its own particular reasons. It cannot be compared in any way to the Varlık Vergisi events. 5 It is something particular to Thrace, for the various reasons I have discussed. And in addition to the reasons I have mentioned, there were the cases of two leading publicists at that time – Cevat Rıfat Atılhan6 and Nihal Atsız7 – who had, before the events, been given free rein to make crude anti-Semitic propaganda with no interference from the state. Their journals were closed down only after the events. Then, in December 1934, five months after the events, Prime Minister İnönü made an official visit to the Thrace region and the cities where it happened, but he didn’t pay a visit to the Jewish community leadership to ask them how they were and what their problems were. So we can see that the Jewish community was of almost no importance in the eyes of Ankara. The Ankara-based leadership didn’t care about what happened to them. They didn’t pay enough attention to the anti-Semitic publicists before the events, nor did they try to compensate the Jews after the events.

• 8 Der Stürmer was an anti-Semitic journal published by Julius Streicher.
• 9 Atsız was professor of literature in Edirne for 3-4 months (September 11 – December 28, 1933).
• 10 Journal published by Nihal Atsız (November 5, 1933 – July 16, 1934) while he was in Edirne.

R. B.: In reply to the first question about the general anti-Semitic propaganda and its repercussions in Turkey, a few words on the two publicists I mentioned, Nihal Atsız and Cevat Rıfat Atilhan. We know that the latter went to Germany in 1933 and that he was in touch with the editor of Der Stürmer. 8 But Cevat Rıfat Atılhan didn’t play a key role in the events because he was located in Istanbul, and he was publishing in Istanbul. At that time Nihat Atsız was a school teacher in Edirne9, in Thrace, and publishing the first issues of his journal Orhun. 10 His students were really fond of him, and he had a lot of admirers. So I think Atsız was also one factor.

• 11 The Türk Ocakları were officially established in March 25, 1912 in Istanbul. Its first president wa (...)

The Tenth anniversary of the foundation of the Republic, celebrated in 1933, also took place in Thrace, in Kırklareli, one year before the events. At that time Jewish-Muslim relations had seemed all right; even two months before the events, Jewish community members were interacting with their Muslim neighbors, who after a short while became their persecutors. A particularly important subgroup of perpetrators were Halkevleri youth, who in 1931 took over the Türk Ocakları, which was closed down.11 We don’t know how Ibrahim Tali, during his visit prior to the events, addressed these people. From his report we can only assume that he really provoked them, based on the conclusion he came in his report that there was a ‘Jewish problem.’

• 12 On April 17, 1933 militants of the Bulgarian Rodna Zaştita (Defence of the fatherland) organization (...)

R. B.: Yes, it can explain why Thrace is a very sensitive area for them: it is very near the Bulgarian-Greek borders, and the Bulgarians, especially, were not so positively inclined towards Turkey. Just a few months before the events we had an incident. On 17 April 1933 the Turkish nationalists youth protested the razing of the Razgrad cemetery12 in Bulgaria. So Bulgaria – especially Bulgaria and not Greece – was seen as a big threat for Turkey. And therefore, these ‘alien’ people – Jews of Turkish nationality, Bulgarians of Turkish or foreign nationality – were seen as potential trouble makers.

• 13 An International Police Conference.

R. B.: I think there are some similarities. The first similarity is that both events were intended to frighten the targeted people. However, in the Thrace events the aim was that Jews would move ‘voluntarily’ from the region, while in the September 1955 events the aim was to show the Greek government that the Turkish grassroots was extremely emotional and sensitive on the Cyprus issue and therefore if the issue was not settled according to Turkey’s desire, the Rums of Istanbul would suffer since the reaction of the grassroots could not be controlled. The September 1955 events also were somehow planned, but I think they also got out of hand to a degree that the government could not have foreseen. I believe this because I don’t think the government was stupid enough to plan such a visible event at the same time an international conference was taking place in Istanbul,13 and while the international community and international press were there.

• 14 In April 1941 non-Muslim men were conscripted into the Turkish Army, but instead of serving as regu (...)
• 15 Tekin Alp or Moise Cohen (1883-1961). A Turkish Jewish intellectual who was a partisan of the Turki (...)

R. B.: I can see different things, not according to the institution but according to the minority. What was the state perspective concerning each minority? I think they were more or less categorizing the Greeks and Armenians together – although in the 1930s the Greeks were still okay – in the long run they were putting them in the same basket as having a track record of betraying the fatherland during the Independence War. And therefore, they were seen, in general, as people who had to be ‘watched carefully’ and ‘not be trusted too much’. That was also the case in the 1940s. In 1941 when all the non-Muslims were conscripted to labor battalions, what we call Yirmi Kura Nafia Askerleri. 14 Even after the 1950s, we see this problem. There was different treatment of the three minorities. The Jews were set apart because they did not have a track record of ‘betrayal of the Fatherland’ and were, at least in some cases, more inclined to be Turkified – we have the example of Tekin Alp15 and other communal leaders in the single-party period who ‘wished’ to be Turkified. Tekin Alp was seen as a model case of Turkification and so the Jews became some kind of symbol for all the other non-Muslim minorities as a good example of citizen, a good example of how non-Muslim citizens should act and behave. We still see it today in the 2000s, with the Armenian question. The Jews have been used rhetorically for 30 years, portrayed as the minority welcomed by first the Ottoman Empire and then by the Turkish Republic. Therefore the Turkish Jews have become a benchmark to show the outside word that ‘We Turks will not commit a crime against humanity towards a non-Muslim minority as evidenced by the fact that we have a track record of tolerance of the Jews.’ It is a rhetoric used by both the Jewish community and the Turkish state.

• 16 Riva Kastoryano, “L’intégration politique par l’éxtérieur. La communauté Juive de Turquie”, Revue F (...)

R. B.: I don’t think so, because politics are made by taking into consideration local sensibilities. However, it is the case that Jewish community leaders began to try to play this game. Because after 1949, when Turkey recognized the State of Israel, Israel was always pro-Turkish. It needed a country like Turkey – a country that was Muslim, democratic, and so on – as a potential ally. Israel always supported Turkey in all kinds of international situations and institutions; for instance, its leaders supported Turkey’s membership in the United Nations in 1949. And this policy is still going on. So until July 1974 and the Turkish Armed Forces’ intervention into Cyprus, the local Jewish community leadership was not a factor in this bilateral relation between Turkey and Israel. In 1974, when Turkey intervened, two big problems emerged: first, the U.S. arms embargo, and second, the American-Armenian organizations lobbying the U.S. Congress to have a bill passed to recognize the genocide. At that point Turkey needed somebody local to use as a card – in this case, the local Jewish community vis-à-vis the American Jewish community and maybe vis-à-vis Israel – to enforce their strategy of lobbying. But until 1974, this was not the case because there was no need for it; things were moving along with no problem from the Turkish side. When Turkey had a problem in 1974, then this required the local community to intervene on Turkey’s behalf, and this made many people in the local Jewish community, which until 1974 had practically no leverage vis-à-vis Ankara, extremely happy. I mean le malheur des uns fait le bonheur des autres (one person’s misery is another’s happiness). They were extremely happy that they had the occasion to at least show that they were ‘real’ citizens. This is what Professor Riva Kastoryano calls ‘integration coming from abroad.’16

• 17 This term defines the social status of non Muslims living in a Muslim country ruled by Sharia. Unde (...)

R. B.: I think two things have to be considered. First of all, Turkification has an extremely negative connotation today in the Turkish intellectual arena because Turkification, from the intellectuals’ perspective, is assimilation. Moreover, it is seen not only as assimilation but as the demographic attempt for the reduction of non-Muslims. So first of all I think we should define what Turkification meant in the context of the 1920s and 1930s. In theory, Turkification until 1945 was to convert non-Muslims into Turks of Christian or Jewish faith. It was a social contract. It could even be seen, from the non-Muslim perspective, as an upgrading of their social status, from the dhimmi status they held until 1923, to a citizenship status that they might obtain after the foundation of the Republic, so long as they became ‘Turks.’ This would mean not only that they spoke Turkish fluently but that they would become ‘Turks’ in their heart, ideals, and minds, that they would get rid of their particularism – whether it be Hellenism or Zionism or Armenian nationalism – and embrace Turkish nationalism. In return, what they were promised was equality in all public domains. But this did not happen; this was left on paper as constitutional rights but never implemented. And the only explanation I see for this is that the social memory of the Turkish Republic, which is the inheritance of 700 years of an empire run by sharia, was still strong after 1923, that the Republican elites and the intellectual elites still considered the non-Muslims as dhimmis. 17

• 18 Schools administrated by the Ministry of Education (Maarif Vekaleti), in distinction to private sch (...)

To be more precise, I think (even if I can’t prove it) there were two factions: one faction (we don’t know if it was dominant at the beginning or not) was an idealistic faction that believed this would be the way to create a new citizen status in Turkey, and then another faction, that in the end became dominant, which still considered them dhimmis, not to be trusted too much, with all the repercussions we have seen in the single-party period. How do I come to this conclusion? The only document I found, which is an American Intelligence report prepared in 1946, is quite interesting. It is a report by the American Intelligence, OSS people, in Istanbul referring to what a Jewish leader of the period, whose name is not given, has to say about the 1930s. According to him the Turkish Jewish leadership understood that there was no other option but to be Turkified. So, he continues, ‘how can we Turkify the Jewish future generation, the young people? The only way is to turn our schools into Maarif Vekaleti’s schools18 or to close them down. To turn them into such schools with all the conversion expenses supported by the Jewish leadership.’ So they went to Ankara to propose this but were refused. And the only explanation given by the anonymous Jewish leader about why Ankara refused is that according to him the Turks wanted the Jews to remain Jews and not assimilate into Turkishness so that they could be identified. The idea was, ‘We don’t need them to be Turkified, we need to be able to identify them so that, eventually, we can squeeze them financially.’

• 19 In March 1964 Turkey denounced the 1930 bilateral agreement with Greece on disputes arising from th (...)

So, the second thing is what today’s intelligentsia in Turkey sees as Turkification. They do see it as a linear program, a requirement of the Turkish State, or the ‘Deep State’ (Derin Devlet) which started in 1915 with the Armenian deportation and continued until 196419 with all these events (or steps) in between: the 1934 Thrace events, the 1941 conscription of non-Muslims into labour battalions, in 1942 the Varlık Vergisi, in 1955 the September anti-Rum pogrom and finally the expelling of the foreign Greek nationals…

• 20 Previously called Grande Rue de Pera. The name was changed into İstiklal (Independence) Avenue afte (...)
• 21 Derogatory term, approximately meaning “infidel”, to define non Muslims in general and particularly (...)
• 22 Non-Muslim.

R. B.: Yes, there was some kind of social engineering attempt that included demographic engineering during the last decade of Ottoman Empire. In the Republican period, I really don’t know, but I can say that the main reasons why there was a form of demographic engineering was, first, not trusting the non-Muslims, at least in part because they were seen as activists – nationalist activists and so on – and, secondly, because of their economic dominance. Apart from the Thrace events and, in 1934, and some Armenians moving from middle Anatolia to Istanbul – and I am speaking exclusively of non-Muslims, not about other ethnic minorities – I am not very comfortable saying that the social engineering project also continued during the Republican period. This is either because I did not really find any document testifying to this, or because I did not focus on this aspect. But at least we can say that the general feeling, the attitude of people towards non-Muslims – and this constitutes the [underlying] reason why these events occurred – I think is the same in both periods. And in the actual context of today, in 2008, when demographically non-Muslims are practically nil, in Turkey if you ask the man in the street in Istiklal Avenue20 ‘What do you think of a non-Muslim?,’ he will of course say that a non-Muslim is not a Turk; he is a ‘giavur’ 21 or a ‘gayrı müslim’22. And, secondly, if you ask ‘Can we trust them?’ there is a greater than 50 percent chance that he will say, ‘Why should we trust them?’ Probably in his lifetime he never met any non-Muslim, but he thinks so from what he is reading in the popular press or, if he ever went to school, from what he read in his textbooks. So the perception of the non-Muslims is still the same during all these decades.