Travelling Exhibition "HAYMATLOZ"
- The University of Istanbul (İstanbul Üniversitesi), the first in Turkey, where most of the German scientists and scholars worked during their time in exile.
As part of the framework program to mark the University of Bremen’s 40th anniversary, the Haus der Wissenschaft hosted a travelling exhibition on Germans who had fled their country before World War II. Called "HAYMATLOZ – Exile in Turkey 1933 – 1945”, the exhibition was open to the public from 26th July till 30th August.
In the period 1933 till 1945, some 1,000 academics, artists and politicians who had fled from persecution in Nazi Germany and had been granted refuge as stateless and displaced persons in Turkey. The word “HAYMATLOZ“, which has since been adopted as a loanword into the Turkish language, had been stamped into their passports by the Turkish authorities. The travelling exhibition “HAYMATLOZ – Exile in Turkey 1933 – 1945” is a reminder of this mostly unknown episode in German-Turkish history.
A collection of photos and documents traces the destinies of German-speaking exiles in Turkey in those times. The travelling exhibition came to Bremen as result of a cooperation project between AKTIVE MUSEUMS Faschismus und Widerstand in Berlin e.V. and the University of Bremen.
Following invitations from the Turkish Government, hundreds of German refugees travelled to the geographically strategic Bosphorus to make their contribution to the modernization of society, culture, and especially science. The HAYMATLOZ exhibition is not only a reminder of the refugees expelled from Germany by the Nazis: It simultaneously records the reform epoch in Turkey under the leadership of Atatürk. The exhibition traces the exiles’ very different life courses: Some of them were prominent personalities, and others just ordinary people whose stories remained untold till now. Another part of the exhibition describes the historical conditions of exile in Turkey.
German-Turkish relations are not only remarkable in respect of the past, though. Fifty years ago the bilateral labor recruitment agreement between the two countries entered into force, providing a boost to economic growth in both countries. Moreover, today there is also an intensive exchange between German and Turkish universities, which last year culminated in the founding of the German-Turkish University in Istanbul.
The exhibition was accompanied by a series of expert lectures on the multiplicity of German-Turkish relations in the sphere of science.
