Diplomat Ulkumen Commemorated in Holocaust Museum
Besides Turkish Ambassador to the United States Faruk Logoglu, Ulkumen’s son Mehmet and his grandson Altug Ulkumen, members of Jewish and Turkish communities were in attendance at the commemoration for Ulkumen who died in Istanbul in 2003 at the age of 89.
Speaking at the commemoration, 69-year-old Bernard Turiel, the son of one of the Jewish families saved by Ulkumen, said that only 151 out of 1,700 Jewish people who were sent from Rhodes to extermination camps survived. He eulogized Ulkumen’s courage.
Ulkumen was the Turkish Consul General on the island of Rhodes, where he saved 42 Jewish families from being sent to Nazi death camps during the Second World War.
On July 19 1944, the Gestapo ordered all of Jews in Rhodes to report for "temporary transportation to a small island nearby", but in fact to take them to Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
Ulkumen, the 30-year-old Turkish Consul General, approached the German commander, General von Kleeman, telling him that Turkey was neutral in the war and demanding that all Jewish Turks on Rhodes, including their spouses, whether Jewish or not, should be released at once.
Ulkumen’s action saved the lives of 42 Jewish families. The rest of the Jews on the island were deported to Greece and from there to Auschwitz.
Soon after he had saved the Jewish families, two German planes bombed the Turkish Consulate building, seriously injuring Ulkumen’s pregnant wife, Mihrinissa. In August 1944 she and Ulkumen were deported to Piraeus, where he spent the remainder of the war in confinement. Mihrinissa died from her injuries a week after giving birth to their son.
In 1989 Ulkumen, who had become known as "the Turkish Schindler", was awarded the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" for his efforts for the Jews during the war. A tree was planted in his honor at the "Path of the Righteous". In 2001 he was presented with the Supreme Service Medal, Turkey’s highest honor.
