Motion for parliamentary inquiry into 1942 Wealth Tax on Jewish, Christian minorities

People at the Aşkale Labor Camp (Photo: Agos)

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Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) deputy Garo Paylan has requested a parliamentary inquiry into the Wealth Tax, which was introduced in 1942 mostly for the country's minorities, including Armenians, Rums and Jews.

"The Wealth Tax, which caused many deaths, poverty, and ... was one of the most important practices that destroyed hope of equal citizenship for minorities, has still not been investigated," he said at the parliament yesterday (November 11).

Government officials who prepared and implemented the Wealth Tax Law and the losses of lives and property caused by it should be determined, Paylan said in his motion.

Material and spiritual losses of the people should be compensated so that the country can confront its past, he said.

Turkey's parliament unanimously passed the Wealth Tax Law on November 11, 1942. It stipulated exorbitant capital taxes for Christians and Jews.

It intended to create a "Turkish bourgeois," Paylan said and recalled then PM Şükrü Saracoğlu's remarks as to why they enacted the law:

This law is also a revolutionary law. We have an opportunity that will gain us economic independence. We will completely eliminate the foreigners that dominate our market and hand over the Turkish market to the Turks.

This law shall be applied with all its force on those who refrain from fulfilling their duty towards this country in this delicate moment even though they got wealthy by benefiting from the hospitality shown by this country.

Eighty-seven percent of those held liable for the Wealth Tax were Christians and Jews, who made up three percent of the country's population at the time, Paylan noted.

The government collected 315 million Turkish liras of tax and Jews and Christians paid 285 million lira of them, he added.

Also, those who failed to pay the tax were sent to labor camps in Sivrihisar district of Eskişehir and Aşkale district of Erzurum after January 1943.

"Thousands of our citizens, including my grandfather, were sent to the camps in Ankara," Paylan said, adding that at least 21 people lost their lives while working physically under hard conditions.

Among those who failed to pay the tax, only Jews and Christians were sent to labor camps. (KÖ/VK)