Paul Pulewka founder of Turkey's pharmacology while in exile from the Nazis: 1935-1955

ABSTRACT

Refugees from Germany transformed and modernized the teaching and the practice of pharmacology in Turkey. One of these was Paul Pulewka. For him and his colleagues at those times America was out of reach because of restrictive immigration laws and wide spread anti-Semitic hiring bias at its universities. Turkey saved a large percentage of those fired from their academic posts by the Nazis in Germany and later in Austria. Yet this significant chapter of 20th Century history has fallen beyond the Anglophone historians' radar horizon. This paper discusses that episode, its legacy, and perceptions thereof in Turkey today