[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 130 (Monday, October 11, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1951]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   HOLOCAUST MUSEUM TO HONOR TURKISH DIPLOMAT FOR SAVING JEWISH LIVES

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                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 8, 2004

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, on October 26th, the Holocaust Memorial 
Museum will honor former Turkish diplomat Selahattin Ulkumen. Few 
honors anywhere have been more deserved.
   In 1944, Mr. Selahattin was a young diplomat who stared down German 
military authorities on the occupied island of Rhodes, convincing them 
to rescind the deportation orders of 50 Jews and their families and 
saving them from certain death. He paid a painful price for his 
courage.
   Today Rhodes is part of Greece, but it was part of the Ottoman 
Empire from 1522 to 1912 and under Italian control from 1912 through 
most of World War II. There were 1,700 Jews on the island when Germany 
took over Rhodes in 1943, after the death of Mussolini hastened the 
disintegration of Italian rule.
   On July 19, 1944, the Gestapo ordered all Jews on Rhodes to report 
for ``temporary transportation to a small island nearby.'' Everybody 
knew what that meant. They were to be transported--and not 
temporarily--to Auschwitz.
   When the Jews were rounded up, Consul-General Ulkumen went 
immediately to the detention center and demanded the release of the 
Jews who were Turkish citizens, as well as their spouses and families. 
The German commander refused at first, but Ulkumen persisted, claiming 
that deportation of Turkish citizens would violate German-Turkish 
treaties and boldly asserting that neutral and neighboring Turkey would 
raise the matter to the level of an ``international incident'' if 
Turkish citizens were deported. In the eyes of Turkish law, he said, 
all citizens are equal.
   The German commander finally relented, but insisted that only Jews 
with citizenship papers--a total of 13--would be released, not their 
spouses and families. Ulkumen, however, would not give ground. 
According to Turkish law, he said indignantly, the spouses and families 
of Turkish citizens ARE Turkish citizens. He was lying through his 
teeth. There was no such Turkish law. But the German commander fell for 
it, and, after a few days, agreed to release the spouses and families. 
In at least one instance, the husband of a Jewish Turkish citizen 
actually was taken off a train already bound from the Greek port of 
Piraeus to Auschwitz after Ulkumen won his point. -Ulkumen also managed 
to win the release of some 25-30 Jews who were former Turkish citizens 
but had allowed their citizenship to lapse.
   In all, according to the website of Israel's Yad Vashem Memorial 
Museum, Ulkumen managed to win the freedom and save the lives of some 
50 Rhodes Jews. He was their only line of defense against the final 
solution. The remainder of Rhodes Jews all were deported to Auschwitz, 
where 90% of them perished.
   The story doesn't end there. Shortly after the release of the 
Turkish Jews and their families, the Germans--perhaps having discovered 
that Consul-General Ulkumen had tricked them regarding Turkish law--
took their revenge. They bombed the Turkish Consulate on Rhodes. 
Consul-General Ulkumen escaped harm, but his pregnant wife did not. She 
was seriously wounded--mortally, it turned out a few weeks later. But, 
before she died, she managed to give birth. Ulkumen himself died last 
year at the age of 89, but the product of that pregnancy, a son--now a 
60-year-old man--will accept the Holocaust Museum's award on his late 
father's behalf.
   Ulkumen went on to hold many distinguished positions in the Turkish 
foreign service before retiring in the 1970s. Yad Vashem paid tribute 
to his courage in 1990 by naming him one of the ``Righteous Among the 
Nations'' and planting a tree in his honor. He was the first Muslim 
ever to receive this honor. In 2001, his own nation bestowed its 
highest award on Ulkumen--the Supreme Service Medal--for his Holocaust-
era heroism on behalf of Jews.
   In both Judaism and Islam, it is said that saving one life is like 
saving the world. Thanks to Mr. Ulkumen, several family trees flourish 
today that otherwise would have been eliminated forever. He put his 
life--and that of his family--at risk rather than compromise his belief 
in equality and his commitment to the sanctity of human life. 
Unfortunately for Europe's Jews, bravery of his sort was all-too-rare. 
I commend the Holocaust Museum for venerating the memory of Selahattin 
Ulkumen and his deeds and for bestowing this honor on this profoundly 
honorable man.

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