about this event via the biography of Sami Günzberg,
Atatürk's dentist. Günzberg was quite a behind-the-
scenes player in Turkey from Sultan Abdülhamid's
time, through the Atatürk era and beyond, until his
death in Istanbul in 1966, playing an important
role in Jewish affairs in Turkey and internationally.
Herewith, a National Geographic piece on the
Atatürk-Einstein-Günzberg relationship from 2012.//
In the late 1920s and early 30s, most of the world was immersed in the
Great Depression. Germany, embittered by the suffocating terms imposed
on it by the victorious allies, must have seen the future as especially
hopeless, akin to a visitation by a medieval plague. Just when things could
not seem more bleak, in 1933 Paul von Hindenburg, President of the
Weimar Republic, made a disastrous decision. He appointed as the
Chancellor of the Republic, Adolph Hitler, the head of the socialist,
ultra-nationalist Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Nazi Party).
The climate of Antisemitism, percolating for years, suddenly erupted
violently under the Nazis. Unemployed young men, clad in brown shirts,
became the Nazi’s Stoßtruppen (“shock troops” or storm troopers),
hunting for Jews in their murderous rampage. Systematically painted as
unpatriotic, Jews were the first to be laid off from their jobs.
In 1949 Einstein meets a young foreign student, Münir Ülgür, at Princeton.
When he learns that Ülgür is a student from Turkey, he shows visible
excitement, “Do you know,” he says, “…your nation produced the greatest
leader of the century!” Einstein then goes on to reminisce about having
received an invitation from Ataturk in the early 1930s, “… to come and
teach in one of our universities. However, as fate would have it,” he
continues, “…it was not to be.”
Sami Günzberg, at left next to Atatürk.
Sami M. Günzberg, a Jewish Turkish dentist, was attending an
International Conference in Paris of the Union for the Protection of
the Well-Being of the Jewish Population (OSE) in 1933. It was there that
he would meet Albert Einstein, the Honorary President of the
organization, and together hatch a plan. Einstein would write a letter to
the Prime Minister, Ismet Inönü, “… I beg to apply to your Excellency to
allow forty professors and medical doctors from Germany to continue
their scientific and medical work in Turkey. The above mentioned
cannot practice further in Germany on account of the laws… in granting
this request your Government will not only perform an act of high
humanity, but it will bring profit to your own country.” Einstein’s letter is
dated September 17, 1933. By September 30, Günzberg would personally
translate Einstein’s letter into Turkish, and with a cover letter of his
own, submit it to the Turkish Government. And although Einstein’s
letter is most likely meant for Ataturk, it is sent in care of the Prime
Minister, Ismet Inönü. The cover letter is signed, “Dis Tabibi (Dentist),
Sami Günzberg, Beyoglu, Istiklal Caddesi, No. 356.”
Inönü’s handwritten message at the bottom of the letter reads, “Their
salaries will be unaffordable for us.” He rejects the offer. Above the
words, “Your Excellency,” appears the rectangular stamp: “Office of the
Prime Minister,” replete with a star and crescent. A handwritten note,
“Maarif Vekaletine” (to the Education Ministry) is seen just above the
date “9-10-933” (October 9, 1933). But when Ataturk hears about the
letter from Einstein, he convenes a meeting with the principles, presumably
the Prime Minister, the Minister of Education and Dr. Günzberg, and
Einstein’s offer is accepted. The invitation is then extended to the German
Jewish scientists, and the reform of higher education is underway,
catalyzed by Einstein’s letter.
It is Atatürk’s hand that is seen in the manner in which history unfolded
for the Jews in Turkey during the next few decades. His driving principles,
science and reason over superstition and dogma, and diligence and merit
over ethnicity and religion, fueled his secular Republic. It would be German
and Austrian Jewish physicians, scientists, archaeologist, linguists who would
prepare the next generation of Turkish scholars, just as it had been
Armenian builders, with reputation for good construction, that had been
hired to build Ankara, the new capital of Turkey.
In a book by Rifat N. Bali, “Sarayin ve Cumhuriyetin Discibasisi, Sami Günzberg”
(“The Master Dentist of the Seraglio and the Republic,” Kitabevi, 2007 )
Günzberg is described as “Dentist, confidante of Sultans and founders of the
Turkish Republic, unofficial diplomat, the acting representative of the heirs of
Sultan Abdulhamid II… and a conduit for assistance to Jewish refugees from
the Nazi genocide in Europe.” The author adds, “Sami Günzberg had resolved
never to write his memoirs. Accordingly, it is only with painstaking research
in various Turkish and international archives that the author succeeded in
piecing together the life and work of the man known to so many in Turkey as
simply “Disçibasi Sami Bey” (“Sami Bey, the dentist”).
Some of the German-Jewish scientists who emigrated
to Turkey in the 1930s.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder