Nissim Zacouto

1890 - 1987
Istanbul, Berlin, Köln, Paris

Nissim Zacouto, Jägerstr. 61, Berlin, 1931 - © privately owned by Fred Zacouto, sel. A. Given by Bjoern Weigel and Christoph Kreutzmüller

Nissim Zacouto, Berlin, 1935 - © privately owned by Fred Zacouto, sel. A. Given by Bjoern Weigel and Christoph Kreutzmüller

Nissim Zacouto, A. Wertheim Berlin, 1913 - © privately owned by Fred Zacouto, sel. A. Given by Bjoern Weigel and Christoph Kreutzmüller

Nissim Zacouto was born to a sephardic family in Istanbul. His ancestors had fled from Spain in the 16th century due to the sanctions against Jews. At home he spoke Ladino, a language his family had kept for 500 years.

Nissim Zacouto attended the French and Austrian schools in Istanbul. Like his father he became a successful carpet trader. In 1913 he moved to Berlin, opened his first carpet shop. Nissim Zacouto spoke Spanish, French, Turkish and German fluently. With his skills and deep knowledge of carpets he became a successful wholesaler, selling oriental rugs to department stores like KaDeWE and Wertheim. At that time, oriental carpets were an important part of bourgeois interiors in Germany.
He opened various branches in Berlin and in Köln and owned residential buildings in Berlin.

He met Norma on one of his annual trips to Istanbul and married her in 1922. Norma moved to Berlin and in 1924 their son Fred was born.

Nissim Zacouto was a co-founder of the Turkish chamber of commerce in Germany, where he later became a board member and a treasurer. He also became an honorable judge and the treasurer of Berlin’s Sephardic community.

When the National Socialists came to power, Jewish businesses had to close or experienced violence. The Turkish citizenship saved Nissim Zacouto at first from the antisemitic attacks by the Nazis. But his work was made more difficult and restricted.

Albrecht von Krosigk tried to help Nissim Zacouto with whom he had been friends for 10 years. He issued a forged letter to him, supposedly in the name of the Berlin police chief. Unfortunately the fake was exposed and Albrecht von Krosigk was arrested by the Gestapo.

When Turkey deprived the Zacouto family from their Turkish citizenship in 1938 they became stateless. The family fled first to Paris in 1939 and then to Southern France, where friends hid them. The family survived the war, but two of Nissims brothers were killed by the Nazis - his elder brother Elias in Buchenwald and his younger brother Vitalis was shot in Lyon by the Gestapo.

After the war, the restitution proceedings failed mostly and were very time consuming. Although Nissim Zacouto had lost everything, he was able to build up a successful carpet business again in Paris. He died 1987 in Paris.

Turkish Jews at the beginning of the 20th century and their fate during the Nazi era, have been rarely been considered in history. The story of Nissim Zacouto is a story of a person who never gave up despite the horrors of National Socialism. His story gives us an understanding what it meant to be Turkish and Jewish at the beginning of the 20th century and how he dealt with his multiple affiliations.

Source:
- Kreutzmüller, Christoph & Weigel, Bjoern (2010): Nissim Zacouto - Jüdischer Wunderknabe und Türkischer Teppichgroßhändler. Centrum Judaicum: Hentrich & Hentrich
Stolpersteine in Berlin - Albrecht von Krosigk, https://www.stolpersteine-berlin.de/de/motzstr/9/albrecht-von-krosigk

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