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The article describes the modernization of health care and medical science in Turkey in the 20th century. It focuses on the role played by German pediatrician Albert Eckstein between 1935 and 1950. It states that many German physicians left their country during the Nazi period and were actively working and contributing to the innovation of the Turkish medical techniques during the 1930s. According to the authors, Eckstein contributes significantly to the implementation of modern public health and pediatric practices across the country including the collection of public health data and using the resulting statistics in improving health services.

The article focuses on the diaspora of German Jewish intellectuals in Turkey from 1933 to 1955. It examines the letters written and received by these individuals whose careers and lives were saved by the Turkish government's invitations. This correspondence between these German Jewish intellectuals, who have found refuge in Turkey, describes the darkest years in modern European history. The impact of this diaspora on the Turkish society and their significance in the survival and development of the refugees' creativity, knowledge, and intelligence are also discussed.

Some 190 persecuted scientists from Nazi Germany found refuge in Turkey between 1933 and 1945. In July 1933, the Notgemeinschaft Deutscher Wissenschaftler im Ausland (Emergency Assistance Organization for German Scientists) contacted the Turkish government, asking it to offer positions to senior level persecuted scientists and physicians (Jewish and non-Jewish). The Turkish government, for its part, was already engaged in a vast enterprise of reforming its system of higher education and was keen to seize this opportunity. Historians have taken little notice of this important episode of the Shoah, in which Albert Einstein also played a role (albeit minor). The integration of the émigré scientists in Turkey is described and their influence on its development discussed. The perception of this episode by public opinion in Turkey today is also considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Turkey and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreed to a stand-by arrangement at the outset of 2000. Consequently, Turkey implemented an exchange-rate based stabilization program to combat its high inflation. However, two financial crises followed: one in November, 2000 and the other in February, 2001. As the result some banks became problematic. This necessitated restructuring of the banking sector to increase its financial efficiency.This paper presents a financial performance index for commercial banks. The index allows one to observe the effects of scale and of the mode of ownership (public/domestic, private/domestic/foreign) on bank behavior and, therefore, on bank performance in a developing economy. It documents the effects of financial liberalization, cross-country movements, and the impact of financial crises originating in neighboring countries e.g. Russia. The study applies Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to selected fundamental financial ratios using 1989–99 data from commercial banks in Turkey. Year-by-year results explain the effects on this sector of major shifts in both national macro-economic policy and various international developments. The banks that were taken over by the regulatory government agency most recently in the analyzed period were observed to perform poorly with respect to their DEA performance index values. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper discusses a dimly lit and largely unknown bit of 20th century history. Starting in 1933,Turkey reformed its medical health care system using invitees fleeing the Nazis and for whom America was out of reach because of restrictive immigration laws and wide-spread anti-Semitic hiring bias at its universities. Among the invitees were several medical scholars who played a large role in westernizing the new Turkish republic's medical practice and research as well as its school curricula.

This paper provides a historical perspective on Ordinarius Professor Albert Eckstein. He was the architect of modern paediatrics in Turkey. The year 2005 was the 55th anniversary of Professor Albert Eckstein's death and the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Paediatric Clinics at Ankara University, where he served for five years as the founding director while in forced exile from Nazi Germany. This is a tale of an individual caught at the crossroads and in the crossfire of history. His native land was in the throes of discarding him. His life was saved because (to him) an alien country was discarding a societal culture inherited from the Ottomans. Turkey recognized the need to modernize its society. The Nazis came to power. Albert Eckstein, a noted German paediatrician, was Jewish.