Die Türkei war 1933 das erste Land, das jüdische Wissenschaftler, über 1.000 Akademiker, Anwälte und Ärzte, die der Verfolgung durch die Nazis entkommen waren, aufnahm

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Smart move

You mean: before the Erdogan era? Since he is in charge, it all goes south…

Here is a more detailed [page](https://anyedenwarren.medium.com/albert-einstiens-letter-to-ismet-inonu-ab55ee4ec5db) about how Albert Einstein wrote to the Prime Minister Ismet Inonu about the 40 Scientists and how Mustafa Kemal Ataturk allowed even more Scientist and Scholars to seek asylum in newborn Republic of Turkey.

Edit: typo

Too bad they only cared about the intellectuals that would be useful, the average Jewish person wouldn’t be so lucky to live in Turkey at that time.

Turkey was the only country not part of the axis to implement anti-jewish laws.

From [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_and_the_Holocaust):

>Prior to joining the Allied Powers late in the war, Turkey was officially neutral in World War II. Despite its neutrality, Turkey maintained strong diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany during the period of the Holocaust. During the war, Turkey denaturalized 3,000 to 5,000 Jews living abroad; between 2,200 and 2,500 Turkish Jews were deported to extermination camps such as Auschwitz and Sobibor; and several hundred confined in Nazi concentration camps. When Nazi Germany encouraged neutral countries to repatriate their Jewish diaspora, Turkish diplomats received instructions to avoid repatriating Jews even if they could prove their Turkish nationality.

>In 1939, Prime Minister Refik Saydam stated that Turkey “would not accept masses of Jews, nor individual Jews who were oppressed in other countries”.

Even when Germany wanted to get rid of Turkish Jews living in their land by sending them back to turkey, Turkey refused:

>When Nazi Germany encouraged neutral countries to repatriate their Jewish citizens in the so-called repatriation ultimatum (*Heimschaffungsaktion*) in late 1942, Turkish diplomats received instructions to avoid repatriating Jews even if they could prove their Turkish nationality.
While other neutral countries frequently intervened on behalf of their Jewish citizens living in German-occupied Europe, historian Corry Guttstadt found that “scarcely any records of Turkish interventions on behalf of Turkish Jewish citizens can be found”. According to French historian Claire Zalc, while it was possible for Turkish authorities to intervene successfully on behalf of Turkish Jews, “such interventions were rare, and they soon stopped altogether”.

Turkey also obstructed Jews traveling trough Turkey to the British Mandate of Palestine:

>During the 1940s, around 10,000 Jews obtained transit visas enabling them to pass through Turkey on the way to Mandatory Palestine. Turkey imposed limits on these visas, issuing them only to be valid for ten days, which meant they were unusable whenever wartime conditions led to delays. Guttstadt found that “during the decisive years of 1942 and 1943, the flight through Turkey was largely blocked” and the majority of these Jews passed through Turkey in late 1944 after the Allies captured southeastern Europe.

This paragraph sums all of this up pretty well: **[TL:DR]**

>According to the research of historian Rıfat Bali, more Turkish Jews suffered as a result of discriminatory policies during the war than were saved by Turkey. Since the war, Turkey and parts of the Turkish Jewish community have promoted exaggerated claims of rescuing Jews, using this myth to promote Armenian genocide denial.

EDIT: Just so you know, it’s not like i hate Turkey, i think they are fine people, but it’s important to remember the whole story so it doesn’t happen again. Sadly Turkey has never really been good with minorities living in their country…
PS: If you downvote, then tell me why, because i would really like to know if you believe this is false and why so. Perhaps you could use your knowledge to update the linked wikipedia page correcting any errors.

Turks are cool people. Too bad they have an idiot in power now who couldn’t spell “Economy” if his life depended on it, and seems to learn all the wrong lessons.