Turkish Passport

I lived through this war and I came out alive.

Today these memories feel like a novel to me.

to you, these things are not real

because you only read about them in books.

They are different to you

but they are real to me.

I was twenty years old, I wasn't a baby.

I experienced these events

at the cinema, in restaurants.

I saw the curfews,

the bombings, and the soldiers in the streets.

I saw the raids where

people were arrested and taken away

I saw the posters on the wall of buildings and

in the metro announcing that people had been executed.

Father came home with newspapers under his arm

and told mother:
"War has been declared!"

It was September 1939.

I remember the war years.

Running in the streets

the bombings and hiding in shelters.

One of my sister's legs were paralyzed.

It was very sad and difficult time.

Between the years 1940-43

we suffered very much.

There were ration books for shoes

and vouchers for bread.

Everything was tightly controlled

and conditions were hard.

When the Nazis entered Paris and

the Government complied with their terms we Jews

were forced to have the word "Jew"

stamped on our Turkish identity cards.

Since we were recognized as Turkish Jews

we did not have to wear the Jewish Star

which was very humiliating.

It was terrifying.

We were constantly scared of

what they might do to us.

If we met Germans in the streets

my mother said:

"Even if they give you sweets, don't take them.

They might be poisoned."

We were always scared

even at school.

There were many restrictions.

We were not allowed into

the public parks, cinema and theaters

or to work in most professions

which didn't effect me at that age.

We could only travel in the last car of the metro

There was an evening curfew.

We were forced to turn in our radios.

It was forbidden for Jew to listen to the radio

During the occupation,

there were constant anti Semitic campaigns.

An infamous one at the Palais Berlitz Hall

had a huge billboard

with a horrible caricature of a Jew.

Anti-Jewish exhibits showed how

Certain "people" had infiltrated French life.

Those "people" meant Jews. The French said:

"We didn't know they were Jews."

A little boy pointed at me and told his mother:

"Look! A little Jew!"

What could we do? Grab our jackets and run?

I would hear Germans coming at night,

breaking down doors, then the sound of people crying.

They would kick in doors and

shout "RAUS, RAUS, RAUS"

as they dragged them away.

I was 12 years old and crying.

Hearing all of that was frightening.

We lived in fear for four years.

Every day we heard about people being deported.

We slept under the bed listening to

War news on radio London.

One of my strongest memories

is the sound of air raid sirens.

When they went off, we panicked.

I remember very well

how our parents would wake us in the middle

of the night to wrap us in blankets.

My handicapped sister and

another sister were with us.

They yelled "Hurry, Hurry!"

and we would all run to the basement.

I remember when Paris was bombed

we took our gas masks

and ran to the basement.

We took flashlights and candles.

We hid until the sirens stopped.

It was very, very cold.

Children were crying and

I was shivering from the cold.

I only remember fear. I was always worried.

Those sounds scared me.

I don't like sirens.

I shook from the bomb noise.

I was terrified.

When alarms went off

we ran to the metro station

and brought our gas masks, some sugar and water

and slept in the metro until the alert passed.

During the Vel d'Hiv raid in July 1942

people started asking what they were

doing to children and the elderly.

They were taking them to Drancy on stretchers.

Until then Nazis hadn't arrested children

but then they rounded up everybody.

They separated children from their parents.

Nearly 100 children were sent to camps at

Pithivier and Beaune-la-Rolande.

These children and crying babies

had no one to take care of them.

People finally noticed.

These camps were in the center of the town.

In July 1942 a friend in the French police

warned us about a big raid

in our neighborhood the next day.

My mother took me to the train station and said:

Hold my hand but act like you don't know me.

Go to the woman I show you

and go away with her."

My mother told me not to say anything.

My father was hiding

but I didn't say a thing.

I didn't talk to anyone.

During the big raid of 1942

No one returned.

No one returned.

As citizens of neutral Turkey

We were protected but

bad things could still happen to us.

Between 1940 and 1941 we were under

Turkish government protection.

French and German laws

forced Jews to wear the yellow star.

Foreigners went to their consulates

and embassies to seek protection.

Those who had registered

were considered "legal" Jews.

Those who hadn't renewed their papers

or married to Turks and

hadn't registered at the embassy

were "illegal".

Both groups wanted to be under Turkish protection.

Each year my father went to the Turkish Embassy

to pay his fees to keep his Turkish nationality.

He was still arrested three times between 1939-1943.

Each time he was released

because of the Turkish Consulate.

Unregistered Jews couldn't prove Turkish citizenship.

They were taught a few Turkish phrases

and when they were asked about their missing papers

and if they spoke Turkish

they repeated the words

they had memorized only a few minutes earlier.

With these few sentences the Ambassador declared

they spoke Turkish. This was considered proof

of Turkish origin, and they got a document.

This freed them form camps and

spared them from the daily raids against Jews in Paris.

My parents always told me

"Never, never say you are Jewish.

"You are a Turk" "You are a Turk".

They repeated this constantly.

I was the only Jew in my school.

They were scared I might say something

They drilled me not to tell anyone I had a star.

Never.

This is what saved me in the neighborhood.

My aunt was living at

Limoges during the German occupation.

When the police came to arrest her family

her Turkish passport saved her and her two children.

and was deported.

We never found out what happened to him.

When the Germans announced

Selahattin lkmen contacted the SS General

on the island to tell him

Turkish Jews living there were Turkish citizens

and the Turkish constitution makes

no distinction of race or religion.

It wasn't easy to convince the German General

but he relented and 42 Jews were saved.

Many Turkish diplomats showed initiative

and risked their own lives

to save Jews from certain death.

I never wore the yellow star because

we were living in an occupied France and

recognized Turkish Jews

were exempt from wearing the star.

But several members of my family living in Paris

were arrested in the metro for not wearing

the yellow star despite being Turkish.

Our position became slightly privileged

Even though our identity papers were stamped "Jew"

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