Forgetting to Forget, 1923–1944 ties and was inequitably applied: even Christians and Jews who were not
rich and who spoke Turkish and had served in the military had to pay.
Because of this, he was ashamed to be a Turk and met with the prime
minister to convince him that something had to be done, since Turkey
looked bad in the eyes of the foreign press. Yalman says in his autobiog-
raphy that he twice happened to visit Aşkale, and that those deportees
were treated well by local people and lived comfortably and in healthy
conditions.^97 From his description, one would think he was describing a
Swiss spa.^98 From the passage, it is not clear whether he was sent there as
a deportee or went there as a news reporter. One writer even says that he
was sent there as a punishment for not being able to pay his tax.^99 Never-
theless, in the preceding pages, he describes his immense disappointment
with the “racist” tax. It was most crushing to him personally, since it tar-
geted those “model minorities,” that is, the Jews, who identified with and
loved the homeland, served in the military, and spoke Turkish at home.
Nevertheless, he was heavily criticized in other papers, but does not say
how. He implies, however, that others labeled Vatan a “minority” news-
paper, which was what the prime minister wanted him to admit.^100
Dönme Claiming Turkishness and Islam:
Ahmet Emin Yalman and Sabiha Sertel
In the 1920 s, Yalman’s strategy was to claim that the Dönme had been
almost entirely assimilated into the Turkish Muslim nation. Yet for the
next decade, despite his efforts, Yalman was continuously attacked in the
pages of Cumhuriyet for being a Dönme, a “fake” Turk, and in essence, a
Je w.^101 This caused him to try another approach, beginning in the 1940 s,
to assert his own Muslim and Turkish identity and deny his Dönme back-
ground. This approach is especially evident in his two autobiographies. In
his English-language autobiography, Yalman introduces himself by writ-
ing, “I am a Turkish journalist.”^102 He also notes how he was born on the
last Friday of Ramadan, which coincided with the Day of Fate, when Mu-
hammad received the first revelation, at the time when the muezzins were
calling from the minarets for the midday prayer.^103 Yalman also discusses
his circumcision according to Muslim rituals.^104
Yalman’s two volumes and nearly two thousand pages of Turkish auto-
biography contain not a single reference to the Dönme, nor to the eleven
part series he wrote about the group, nor to debates in the press in which