Forgetting to Forget, 1923–1944 damage it caused broke Armenian, Greek, and Jewish men. Indeed, as
Rıfat Bali relates, this tax served as one of the main impulses for the rapid
emigration of half of Turkish Jewry in the ensuing years.^88 Coming at the
end of a series of anti-Jewish measures, and not followed by apology or
compensation, it made Jews, considered parasites, realize that they would
never be treated as equals, and thus that they had no future in Turkey.
A meeting at the Office of the Head of the Industrial Study Board in
Istanbul in autumn 1944 toward the end of the wealth tax’s imposition is
illustrative of the mood of the time. Şevket Süreyya Aydemir serves as the
head of the Industrial Study Board. He is meeting with Avram Galanté
and another leading Turkish Jew about the implementation of the wealth
tax. Galanté, despite being a vocal Turkish nationalist and vociferous pro-
ponent of the Turkification of the Jews, lost his property to the wealth tax.
He went to Aydemir to appeal the confiscation of his property. Aydemir
is very blunt, asserting: “We Turks, because for centuries we have been
busy fighting thousands of wars, have never found time for industry, or
for accumulating money and wealth. All of you minorities have done this.
We protected you from wars. You did not send any soldiers to the front.
Sometimes you even found a way not even to pay taxes.” Accordingly,
ethno-religious minorities “gathered all commerce, industry, imports and
exports, money and wealth in your hands. This was done at the cost of
the blood we spilled for centuries—even after the Tanzimat [Reform De-
cree of 1839 establishing equality of Christians, Jews, and Muslims under
Ottoman law] you were able to preserve the opportunities that you mi-
norities have gathered unto yourselves. The Tanzimat Decree itself was
not proclaimed in order to save us from these wars, but in order to pre-
serve ‘the security of your property and person.’ ” Then Aydemir draws up
an imaginary account book. He says: “If you were to compare the blood
that we have spilled for centuries against the one or two million lira that
you will hand over for this wealth tax, and if we were even to call it the
‘Blood Tax,’ do you think our reckoning would be very oppressive? What
do you say? If you wish, let’s weigh the blood we’ve spilled and our end-
less military efforts against a little extra taxing, or our accumulated blood
and rights as soldiers against the wealth you’ve accumulated and see if
ours adds up. If we are being unjust, your taxes will be abolished. What
do you say?”^89
As illustrated by Aydemir’s argument, World War II and the wealth
tax coincided with the return of the parasite motif to the forefront of