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I removed the various opinions Baer has about this figure, which aren't based in sources but on selectively not reading the sources in Shaw and by casting doubt on established sources. Baer is an aggressive ideologue and not a neutral source.
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Ungitow (talk | contribs)
142 edits
→Claims of Holocaust rescue: Baer's views are not relevant here. He doesn't prove that the events didn't happen, but has certain opinions on it. You can put these on Marc Baer's page, not on every page about which he has an opinion.
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Kent also claimed that he reached out to the Jewish community, issuing Turkish identity documents to scores of Turkish Jews living in southern France, or those who had fled there and did not hold valid Turkish passports.<ref name=dailytel/> Kent also said that he went to Gestapo headquarters to protest against their the stripping of males in the street in Marseilles to determine whether or not they were Jews (by [[circumcision]]); Kent rebuked the German commander and informed him that circumcision did not necessarily prove an individual's Jewishness, since Muslims are also circumcised.<ref name=dailytel/>
Kent also claimed that he reached out to the Jewish community, issuing Turkish identity documents to scores of Turkish Jews living in southern France, or those who had fled there and did not hold valid Turkish passports.<ref name=dailytel/> Kent also said that he went to Gestapo headquarters to protest against their the stripping of males in the street in Marseilles to determine whether or not they were Jews (by [[circumcision]]); Kent rebuked the German commander and informed him that circumcision did not necessarily prove an individual's Jewishness, since Muslims are also circumcised.<ref name=dailytel/>
===Verification of claims===
Historian [[Marc David Baer]] notes several inconsistencies in Kent's story, concluding that it is "manufactured".{{sfn|Baer|2020|pp=193–194}} Historian [[Corry Guttstadt]] examines the claims made, concluding that "Kent's heroic action is just completely unfounded". She criticized attempts to use "an imaginary rescue of Jews as a publicity tool".<ref>{{cite web |title=Film Review: Turkish Passport {{!}} Sephardic Horizons |url=https://www.sephardichorizons.org/Volume3/Issue1/guttstadt.html |website=www.sephardichorizons.org |access-date=14 January 2021}}</ref>

The [[ International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation]] researched the role of Turkish diplomats during the Holocaust, reporting: {{quote|to date, it was not possible to receive any independent, objective third party corroboration to the self-testimony of Mr. Necdet Kent, regarding his having boarded a Nazi deportation train and released a number of Turkish Jews from deportation or death. No single survivor or survivor’s descendent, has ever come forward verifying this account. All the IRWF attempts to get access to the official Turkish Archives, utilized by Shaw, have been ignored.{{sfn|Baer|2020|p=199}}<ref>{{cite news |title=Turks saved Jews from Nazi Holocaust |url=https://www.raoulwallenberg.net/highlights/turks-saved-jews-nazi/ |access-date=25 December 2020 |work=The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation}}</ref>}}
Kent has not been recognized as [[Righteous Among the Nations]].{{sfn|Baer|2020|p=166}}


==Legacy and honors==
==Legacy and honors==

Revision as of 06:20, 2 May 2022

Necdet Kent
Born
İsmail Necdet Kent

(1911-01-01)January 1, 1911[1]
İstanbul, Ottoman Empire
DiedSeptember 20, 2002(2002-09-20) (aged 91)
NationalityTurkish
Alma materNew York University
OccupationDiplomat
Known forClaims of saving lives of Jews during World War II
ChildrenMuhtar Kent
AwardsTurkey's Supreme Service Medal

İsmail Necdet Kent (1 January 1911 – 20 September 2002) was a Turkish diplomat, who claimed to have risked his life to save Jews during World War II. While vice-consul in Marseilles, France between 1941 and 1944, he gave documents of citizenship to dozens of Turkish Jews living in France who did not have proper identity papers, to save them from deportation to the Nazi gas chambers.

Biography

Early life and education

Necdet Kent was born in 1911 in Istanbul in the Ottoman Empire and got his secondary education from Galatasaray Lycee, as did some of his colleagues in the foreign ministry. He travelled to the United States for his university studies, earning a degree in public law from New York University. He was also briefly a professional footballer for Hull Fc.

Career

Returning to Turkey, Kent entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1937. He was first posted as vice consul to Athens, Greece. In 1941, he was appointed to the post of vice consul at Marseilles, France, a post which he held until 1944. Many refugees gathered in southern France during the war, and Marseilles was a major port of embarkation.

After World War II, Kent continued his career in the Turkish foreign service. He served as Consul General at the Turkish Consulate General in New York City. He also was at different times the Turkish ambassador to Thailand, India, Sweden,[2] and Poland.[3][4]

Necdet Kent married and had children.[3] One son, Muhtar Kent, was the chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company from July 2008 till May 2017.

Claims of Holocaust rescue

In an annex to Stanford J. Shaw's book Turkey and the Holocaust (1993), Kent's claims of rescuing Jews during the Holocaust were first published.[5]

Kent said that, at some time in 1943, an assistant at the Turkish consulate told Kent that the Germans had just loaded 80 Turkish Jews living in Marseilles into cattle cars for immediate transport to probable death in Germany. Kent later recalled, "To this day, I remember the inscription on the wagon: 'This wagon may be loaded with 20 heads of cattle and 500 kilograms of grass'."[6][3] Kent approached the Gestapo commander at the station, and demanded that the Jews be released, as they were Turkish citizens and Turkey was neutral. The official refused to do so, saying that the people were nothing but Jews.[6]

According to his own account, Kent and his assistant quickly got on the train; the German official asked him to get off, but Kent refused. At the next station, German officers boarded and apologized to Kent for not letting him off at Marseilles; they had a car waiting outside to return him to his office. Kent explained that the mistake was that 80 Turkish citizens had been loaded on the train. "As a representative of a government that rejected such treatment for religious beliefs, I could not consider leaving them there," he said. Surprised at his uncompromising stance, the Germans ultimately let everyone off the train.[3]

Kent also claimed that he reached out to the Jewish community, issuing Turkish identity documents to scores of Turkish Jews living in southern France, or those who had fled there and did not hold valid Turkish passports.[3] Kent also said that he went to Gestapo headquarters to protest against their the stripping of males in the street in Marseilles to determine whether or not they were Jews (by circumcision); Kent rebuked the German commander and informed him that circumcision did not necessarily prove an individual's Jewishness, since Muslims are also circumcised.[3]

Legacy and honors

In 2001, Kent, Namık Kemal Yolga and Selahattin Ülkümen, also Turkish diplomats who had worked in Europe and saved Jews during World War II, were honoured with Turkey's Supreme Service Medal.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ everyone in Turkey at that time had a year of birth but not a date of birth
  2. ^ "Büyükelçilik Tarihi ve Önceki Büyükelçilerimiz" (in Turkish). T.C. Stokholm Büyükelçiliği. Retrieved 2018-04-04.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "True courage of one who had to act: Necdet Kent, Turkish diplomat 1911-2002", The Daily Telegraph, London; reprinted on Sydney Morning Herald.com, 1 Oct 2002, accessed on September 25, 2008
  4. ^ "Büyükelçilik Tarihi ve Önceki Büyükelçilerimiz" (in Turkish). T.C. Varşova Büyükelçiliği. Retrieved 2018-04-04.
  5. ^ Baer 2020, p. 193.
  6. ^ a b Etgar Lefkovits, "Necdet Kent: Le Consul turc qui a stoppé le train de la mort!" (The consul who halted the death train) Archived 2006-12-20 at the Wayback Machine, Bleublancture.net, 21 Sep 2000, accessed 3 Dec 2009

Further reading

  • Baer, Marc D. (2020). Sultanic Saviors and Tolerant Turks: Writing Ottoman Jewish History, Denying the Armenian Genocide. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-04542-3.

Films

  • Turkish Passport (2011) www.theturkishpassport.com
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