Yasar Cerkes (1921 – 1997)

Yasar Cerkes

Yasar Cerkes

He was born in Ankara in 1921. His father, Nazım Çerkeş, suggested his son Yaşar Çerkeş to do business with the words, “I have never seen a tradesman hungry or a full servant”, since neither he nor his father were honest civil servants and lived very well with limited earnings. Yaşar Çerkeş helped his father Nazım Çerkeş during his university years in Ankara, and then started business life in Istanbul. He was an industrialist businessman who first engaged in wholesale business, then black pepper production, and then steel wool production in Istanbul. He explained that while he was doing his military service in his youth, he was on a Turkish ship traveling with British cargo ships off the coast of Malta?, and that the British ships were sunk by the attack of German warplanes, and that the German planes only targeted the British ships and did not sink the Turkish ship in which he was aboard. In addition to classical literary works, he mostly read works related to World War II. He listened to Turkish Classical Music, Opera and Turkish Folk Music. Yaşar Çerkeş knew enough German to read a book, and he knew enough French to understand what he had learned at the Alliance Française in Paris for 3 months. He had 2 sons from his marriage with Güneş Çerkeş. These are Nazım Çerkeş and myself Tolun Çerkeş. He died in 1997 at the age of 76. According to his will, he was buried in Ankara Cebeci Cemetery over his father Nazım Çerkeş.