ISTANBUL - Retired Ambassador Selahattin Ulkumen who prevented Nazis from deporting a group of Jewish people to concentration and extermination camps during the World War II, was laid to rest in Istanbul on Monday.
His son Ufuk Ulkumen told reporters during the funeral, ''my father had been serving as council general in Rhodes during the World War II. German government was deporting Jewish people to concentration and extermination camps. He risked his life to save Jewish people on the island. He saved them by giving Turkish citizenship. German soldiers threatened my father. Two German war planes bombed Turkish Consulate building. My mother was seriously injured in the bombing. She passed away after giving birth to me. My father told me once, 'I fulfilled my humanitarian duty. I saved 42 Jewish families. I would do the same thing whenever was necessary'.''
Turkish Jewish Community Chairman Bension Pinto said that they were grateful to Ulkumen.
Meanwhile, Acting Chief Rabbi Rav Aduni said, ''Ulkumen risked his life to save many Jewish people during the darkest days of the World War II.''
Ulkumen had been born in Antalya in 1911.
He had served as the council general in Rhodes, which was under German occupation during the World War II.
He had prevented German soldiers from deporting 42 Jewish families to concentration and extermination camps by acting on his own initiatives. All the rest of the Jews on the island, some 1 thousand 700, were deported to Auschwitz.
He had been presented with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Meritorious Service Medal.
Israeli government recognized him as a Righteous Among the Nations in 1990.
Meanwhile, Hartford University in Connecticut, the United States, opened an exhibition ''Visa's for Life: Virtuous Diplomats'' in order to inform American public opinion on the Holocaust and to introduce Ulkumen, who saved a group of Jewish people from being deported to concentration and extermination camps with his limited opportunities.
(UK-AÖ) 09.06.2003