Haymatloz - Ernst Reuter in Ankara
The word "Haymatloz" was written in capital letters in the passports of Jewish refugees who tried to escape to Turkey during World War II. More than 1000 German people immigrated to the Bosporus from 1933 until 1945 and they left traces which can still be seen today.
This is a part of German-Turkish history known only by very few people. The word "Haymatloz" got into the Turkish language as a kind of borrowed word.
Ernst Reuter must have been regarded as a strange person by lots of Turks when he was seen riding his bicycle early in the morning on the way to his job in Ankara, wearing the typical European hat of that time, the beret, pulled well down over his face, and his knickerbockers waving to the vegetable traders while on the way to his lessons at the university.
Communal politics and town planning were the subjects studied by this German at the University of Politics in Ankara, while he spent more than 12 years in Turkish exile.
Ernst Reuter, who later became the first Bürgermeister (Lord Mayor) of Western Berlin, was one of the most famous German immigrants in Turkey. After losing his job as Lord Mayor of Magdeburg and twice being imprisoned in the concentration camp of Lichtenburg in 1935 as a social democrat, he was able to escape. The Turkish Government especially tried to help this young, well-trained intellectual immigrant and hoped to get his help working on their own young Republic. About 800 scientists, artists and politicians came to Turkey, invited by Atatürk. Alfred Heilbronn and Curd Cosswig were the founders of the Botanical Institute in Istanbul and the first National Park of Turkey. Paul Hindemith reformed the Turkish Institute of Music completely and fundamentally. The human rights scientist, Ernst E. Hirsch, established, together with others, the Faculty of Law at the University of Istanbul and also took part in the drafting of Turkish trade laws. Fritz Neumark worked on the laws for the introduction of the Turkish tax system.
The Parliament in Ankara was designed by the Berlin architect Bruno Taut and the Faculty of Literature was built based on the plans of Clemens Holzmeister.
Edurad Zuckmayer (1890 ? 1972), a music teacher, lived and died in Ankara from 1936 until 1972. He was the director of the Faculty of Music at the Gazi-Egitim-Enstitüsü.
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