1. Ismail Necdet Kent was a Turkish diplomat, who claimed to have risked his life to save Jews during World War II.
15 Facts About Necdet Kent
1. 2.
Necdet Kent was born in 1911 in Istanbul in the Ottoman Empire and got his secondary education from Lycee de Galatasaray, as did some of his colleagues in the foreign ministry.
3.
Necdet Kent travelled to the United States for his university studies, earning a degree in public law from New York University.
4.
Necdet Kent was briefly a professional footballer for Hull FC.
5.
Necdet Kent was first posted as vice consul to Athens, Greece.
6.
Necdet Kent served as Consul General at the Turkish Consulate General in New York City.
7.
Necdet Kent was at different times the Turkish ambassador to Thailand, India, Sweden, and Poland.
8.
One son, Muhtar Necdet Kent, was the chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company from July 2008 till May 2017.
9.
Necdet Kent said that, at some time in 1943, an assistant at the Turkish consulate told Necdet Kent that the Germans had just loaded 80 Turkish Jews living in Marseille into cattle cars for immediate transport to probable death in Germany.
10.
Necdet Kent explained that the mistake was that 80 Turkish citizens had been loaded on the train.
11.
Necdet Kent claimed that he reached out to the Jewish community, issuing Turkish identity documents to scores of Turkish Jews living in southern France, or those who had fled there and did not hold valid Turkish passports.
12.
Necdet Kent said that he went to Gestapo headquarters to protest against their stripping of males in the street in Marseille to determine whether or not they were Jews by circumcision; Necdet Kent rebuked the German commander and informed him that circumcision did not necessarily prove an individual's Jewishness, since Muslims are circumcised.
13.
Historian Marc David Baer notes several inconsistencies in Necdet Kent's story, concluding that it is "manufactured".
14.
Necdet Kent criticized attempts to use "an imaginary rescue of Jews as a publicity tool".
15.
Necdet Kent has not been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.