This article seeks to highlight the ambivalence inherent in Turkish diplomacy with reference to its attitude towards Jewish Turks living in Nazi occupied territories and thus being threatened by extermination policy. Embarking from a microhistoric approach, focussing on particular Jewish-Turkish citizens either helped or abandoned by Turkish diplomats, the study outlines a striking ambivalence and a lack of a common thread in attitudes and willingness to help. As this study touches on questions

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... of citizenship and its underlying concepts determining membership to a state and a nation, particular attention is drawn to Turkey's struggles for a new national identity shaped by Kemalism. Linking these concepts to the attempt to construct a new, homogenuous nation through social engineering, the study interprets the many-faced diplomatic attitude as a result of the ambivalence immanent in the new construct of the Turkish nation, exemplified by tensions between laiklik (laizism) and milliyetçilik (nationalism).