Behiç Erkin, Turkish colonel and politician, Turkish Minister of Environment and Urban Planning (b. 1876)
Behiç Erkin (1876 in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire – November 11, 1961, in Istanbul, Turkey) was a Turkish career officer, Armenian genocide perpetrator, first director (1920–1926) of the Turkish State Railways, nationalized under his auspices, statesman and diplomat of the Turkish Republic. He was Minister of Public Works, 1926–1928, and deputy for three terms; and an ambassador. He served as Turkey's ambassador to Budapest between 1928–1939, and to Paris and Vichy between August 1939-August 1943.
Although it has been claimed that Erkin rescued 20,000 Jews during the Holocaust, these claims are unsubstantiated. The film Turkish Passport was criticized for "attempts to whitewash a perpetrator of the Armenian genocide by painting him as a rescuer in the Holocaust".