This book chronicles the story of a group of individuals caught at a crossroads and targeted in the cross fires of history. In 1933 events in their native Germanic lands presented them with a "Hobson's choice"-leave if you can or die! Their lives were saved because Turkey was discarding the society and culture inherited from the Ottomans' derelict and shattered empire while recognizing and addressing the need to modernize its society, culture, way of living, and system of higher education.
Using a collection of third-party archival documents, cotemporaneous family and collegial correspondence, memoirs, oral histories, photos, and other surviving evidence Arnold Reisman documents the fears, the courage, the heartaches, and the determination of these brilliant people as well as their contributions to shifting established paradigms in several fields of knowledge. He also speculates about Turkey's inabilities to fully capitalize on these emigres' legacy. The book is intended for lay readers interested in history of the 20th Century, history of science, history of Turkey, the Holocaust, and in a case study of post-Islamic national development.
"This book adds to our knowledge of an important aspect of the Holocaust, and of the behavior of Nation States in the modern world of woe and grief."
- Sir Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill's official biographer and a leading historian of the modern world. He is the author of The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War.
"This book should be on the 'must-read' list of books about World War II and the years preceding it."
- Dr. Israel Hanukoglu, Former Science Adviser to the Prime Minister of Israel. Currently Professor and Chairman of the Department of Molecular Biology, College of Judea and Samaria, Ariel, Israel.
"This book involves five major topics: science, history, politics, economics, and the arts. It is the earliest comprehensive essay in the English language, on the German émigrés who, while taking refuge in Turkey after 1933, contributed to the modernization of its higher education, and to the implementation of research activities and social reforms."
- Prof. Dr. Feza Günergun, Chair for History of Science, Faculty of Letters, Istanbul University, Beyazit-Istanbul, Turkey.
