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Although Turkey was neither occupied by the Germans nor officially allied to Nazi Germany during the Second World War, the political stance of Ankara towards the Jews had a decisive role for several of their groups:some 75,000 Jews were living in Turkey,Jews from Central and Eastern Europe, to which Turkey, because of its geographical position, could have been an important host or transit country, andmore than 20,000 Jews from Turkey who lived in France and in other European countries, were dependant on the protection of their country, especially given the persecutions of the Nazi state.Based on a wide variety of sources, the text makes clear that the main objective Turkey had during the Holocaust was to repulse the Jewish refugees and to prevent the Turkish Jews from returning to their mother country, whereas Turkey could have saved them from Nazi persecution. This attitude was not primarily the result of pressure from Germany: it was first and foremost the consequence of the policy of the Turkish Republic, nationalistic and hostile to minorities.