An unknown chapter of the Third Reich: Atatürk, founding father of the Republic of Turkey, had invited German intellectuals to participate in his ambitious university reform. Immediately after the Nazi seizure of power, about one third of the professors lost their positions at German universities. What few people know is that numerous intellectuals, whether Jews or anti-fascists, fled to Turkey, then a little-known country . The filmmaker Eren Önsöz accompanies the living descendants of these professors to locations in Switzerland, Germany and Turkey. With the help of five protagonists who were born and grew up in Turkey, she examines this forgotten chapter of German-Turkish history, whose significance reaches into our present day.
After the Nazis seized power, many German intellectuals went into exile, some of them to Turkey.
An unknown chapter of the Third Reich: Atatürk, founding father of the Republic of Turkey, had invited German intellectuals to participate in his ambitious university reform.
Immediately after the Nazi seizure of power, about one third of the professors lost their positions at German universities. What few people know is that numerous intellectuals, whether Jews or anti-fascists, fled to Turkey, then a little-known country .
The filmmaker Eren Önsöz accompanies the living descendants of these professors to locations in Switzerland, Germany and Turkey. With the help of five protagonists who were born and grew up in Turkey, she examines this forgotten chapter of German-Turkish history, whose significance reaches into our present day.